One Word at a Time

It is never quite the right time to write is it? Or so it seems to me. Priority has always been given to duty and writing for me is such a loved pastime that in my mind it is an indulgence. And, raised in a strict Catholic tradition which screams fire and brimstone at anything that might appear to be pleasurable, I always have had to relegate writing time to the back end of all my duties. How can you write when there's always so much to do: laundry, dinner, shopping, cleaning...oh, and earning a living while you find someone who will pay for your writing?

This isn't a picture of me, but when all six were at home and there were eight of us, I wish I could have hung washing from each window as well as the lines in the garden and every radiator indoors! Laundry, laundry everywhere and not a stitch to wear!

As a working parent, there were always many more duties than time for indulgences. With six kids to raise, and periods of running my own businesses, there was rarely time to sleep, let alone write. And of course, if you don't sleep, your writing is generally poor because your brain pretty much babbles. You see, it's not "baby brain" - that is just a construct from a paternalistic society that convinces women and the men around them that pregnancy and motherhood somehow affects your ability to be rational, clever, quick-witted, problem-solving, creative, professional and all those things that make you worth employing and successful and worth paying as much as the next man (yes, deliberate use of a traditional male-centred vocabulary). The problem for a writer with being a parent is lack of sleep and how that affects your brain. (I'm going to make interruptions a theme of a later post).

So, six kids later I'm pretty used to thinking in a state of brain fog. And looking back on some of my early attempts at poems and stories, even feature articles, these clearly show that I was knackered. Like this:

Dunfanaghy and beyond

That crumbling cottage by the lough was once a home,

A shelter from the winds that lash the hills.

It had a roof of black thatch, once,

And small windows that caught a little sunshine

To brighten the daily gloom.

The doorway is low

And must have encouraged

A suitably obsequious stoop from the farmer.

No, not farmer.

Peasant, perhaps, or chastened warrior

Driven to the edge of survival by the conquistadors

That came in droves to raid and plunder,

And rape

The very bowels of the earth they trod.

The stones, now worn and tumbling,

Grey as the mist that shaped them,

Still carry the brown scent of the turf fire,

And scattered in the single, ragged room,

Abandoned remnants of rural toil:

Iron cooking pots hurled in a hurry aside,

A spade and a poker dropped in the corner

These last hundred years and more.

Banked to the side,

Leaning, like a child against his mother’s time-worn skirts,

A byre,

Still sweating the stench of huddled cattle,

Sheltering from the leeward lunge of ocean gales.

It was once a home, filled with warmth,

And singing children, smiles amid the toil.

But hunger curbed their joy.

Famine destroyed them all,

And death spread his insidious net

Over barren hills and sterile glens.

Just a little heap of stones,

Staring silent to empty space.

Just a grim and lingering grave.

That effort emerged from a snapped half of an HB pencil, chewed at the snapped end, and scribbled onto a tourist guide pamphlet in the mid-90s during a drive through Donegal. Three kids, full time job, just finished a part-time university degree and wondering if I could cut it as a poet. Awkward phrases, lack of rhythm...but not entirely wasted. I salvaged one or two bits and inserted into other poems and it was good practise at using an observation to develop an idea and write about it.

A published novelist told me last year how she managed to start to publish her work, despite having to raise six kids of her own. "It was difficult. The first ten years were really hard, writing in bits in between doing everything else. But it all boils down to persistence. Every sentence you write means you get better, no writing is ever wasted." It took her over ten years to write a novel good enough to publish. She now has half a dozen to her name and her books can be found on book shop shelves all over the country. Others I have spoken to - few with six kids, though! - were a bit more fortunate: partners who worked while they parented, au pairs and nannies, parents who paid their rent for them...I shan't go into my views on class, money and the opportunity to be a creative, it would become a political rant.

So, all that aside, I keep going, bit by bit, sentence by sentence. Yes, there have been four or five, or more perhaps, stabs at novels. Stories sent off to publishers never to be seen again (oh, the cruelty of the silent rejection!). Dunfanaghy and beyond has not seen the light of day for over twenty years till today. It was all part of the dud notes of practising. I think my writing got better. Use of language, playing with words all improve with practise. Just as a pianist can only learn a symphony one bar at a time, a writer can only finish their piece one word at a time. And sometimes, short pieces can work well. Like this one, which got a "highly commended in a small competition once about eight or nine years ago:

Winter morning.

Morning air so cold

it slices through your skin

and peels back the last of night- time sleep

from eyes that sting in thin 

winter light so bright

it glints rose gold

from silver leaves.

Each step a snap,

 a crack, a sharp shot,

each breath a shard of icy mint

that lingers on your tongue,

then leaves the scent

of musk, of earth,

of naked trees,

of frozen dew

…of death.

I still have a teenager at home, and all the worrying and thinking about my kids, even those in their twenties and thirties who have kids of their own, and I still am a really poor sleeper. But I have kept going, with long gaps, lots of frustrations, lots of interruptions and loss of "the flow" and I finally feel I can say "I am a published writer". And I am paid for some of my writing. I still need to fulfil my ambition of publishing fiction, a novel perhaps, or another slim volume of poetry. But every word, every sentence, is a step closer. 

Time and Space for Writing - in the mind

So I managed to book rooms, and made a stab at hosting a writer's group.  And wrote a story.  And then it all went wrong.

No-one turned up.  Well, two did, but by that time, I'd had an eleven hour day, was hungry, cold, disillusioned and went home.

Then the next time, the room had been double booked.  So no great success there, plus the guilt of letting other people down.

Clearly I need to take control again, make sure that my writing time is there and that everyone around me respects it, and that I can give some thought to communicating with other local writers.  At home I've set aside Sunday mornings and the family is easy going about it.  The first hurdle has been cleared.

But in recent weeks all I've done is work, so intensely I can barely think when I get as far as home, can sleep only in fits and starts and reading is a struggle, let alone writing.  Now that is a much deeper problem, and one that many writers must face, because it is an unusual thing for writers to be able to learn a good enough living from just writing alone.  Not unless they are so hugely dedicated, so good at their craft, networking, marketing their work and so on, that they have very successful freelance writing careers.  And I have huge admiration for these writers.  But I am in that dilemma where I must work to raise the family, keep a roof over their heads etc. but I cannot rely on writing income because I have no time to hone my skills, market my work etc. quickly enough to obtain enough commissions to be a full-time writer.

But that's ok.  Not all painters expect to exhibit their art in galleries and have a bidding war going on over their canvasses at auction houses.  But they still paint, and hang their art on walls in homes or maybe even in local cafe's and enjoy the creativity, the production.  Which is pretty much how I look at my writing.

So when work interferes to an extent where my hobby can have no time in my life because in the time I have my brain is dulled by mental exhaustion, then it is pretty clear to me that my work-life balance has to be redressed.  Because unlike sport, or cookery, or flower arranging, or going to a wine-tasting club, or salsa classes, writing needs enormous engagement of the mind.  Work does not interfere with me walking the dog - and I used to use this time to work out plots or characters in my head, but recently I've been wording up emails or working out lists of things to do the next day in the office.  Physical time is there every day because I get up extra early and I go out late in the evening to  walk.  But it's mental time.  My brain is so cluttered and tired, that even thinking about storylines is tiring.

I decided to see if there were any tips out there I could put to use - I can't afford not to work, though that would be a fine thing and I found these three I'm going to try out next week:

1.  The right tools to write with

      Being prepared is essential, so since I give myself two hours on a Sunday, then I can make best use of this when I have everything around me I need - laptop, notes, a notebook, a cup of tea, and the door to my room closed.  I make sure my pens work, the laptop charger is to hand and that any notes I may have scribbled down during the week are to hand so I can refer to them.  If I approach my writing like I do my work, then for those two glorious hours, I can focus on the task of producing the novel or story or poem I want to write.

2.    Music

       I find quiet background music helps me focus.  It makes me detach myself from work altogether so my thoughts are less likely to wonder back to what I left at the office on the Friday.  Each person will have their own trigger item or routine that will help them focus - a friend of mine sets an alarm for her one hour writing session, it focuses her on trying to finish the piece she is working on in that time.  When the alarm goes off, she finds she has achieved some progress and that keeps her thinking on what she is writing rather than on the everyday things that can be so distracting.

3.   Setting a goal

      In a way it's using a technique from the office, but if it is successful at work, then no reason it can't be successful in my writing.  My goal this week is to try to enter a story for the Gibraltar Spring Festival short story competition.  I've only got till 14th March to get it ready.  My preparation for this was giving it some real thought when out walking the dog (and yes, I did occasionally get distracted thinking about work, but like everything else in life, discipline helps), and then I wrote it out during my session.  It needs to be finished and polished, so I will have to carve out an extra session this week, and I'm sure it will be worth it.

I'll give these three things a try.  The long and the short of it is that writers write.  Less bleating, more writing.  There can be no success without trying.