Ideas like buses

I had an idea earlier on today.  I was in the middle of writing something - I was concentrating, and then this idea sneaked up and wanted my attention. I pushed it away, fobbing it off with '...in a minute...' and it was so offended that it disappeared and hasn't been back.

I knew I should have written it down. I should have made a mental (or physical) note of what I was doing, suspended that thought process for a moment or two and scribbled down the idea before resuming task one.

Silly me.

Now I'm left with a nagging sense that it was a Great Idea. One of the best. And now it's gone.

Two ideas came at the same time, you see, and I was flummoxed. Like waiting for ages and ages at a bus stop (in the rain) and then two buses come at once. As I clamber on the first, fumbling for my bus pass, the second sails on by. I will never know what it might have been like to ride on that bus; who I might have met, what I might have seen - because I got on the first one.

That's what happened to me this morning.

Can't think why I didn't make a note. I am such a note-writer that my desk, every handbag I own, the kitchen counter and bedside drawer all house multiple notebooks. I have scraps of paper all over the place. I keep a notepad by my bed and several nights a week I attempt to capture something that comes to me in the hours of darkness; a dream, an idea, a snatch of dialogue, or some vague and random thought that I don't want to let go of.

This Notebook By The Bed technique has been met with variable degrees of success. I have tried not putting the light on, to avoid waking the husband, or indeed to avoid waking myself up too much, but this is not to be advised. You can very easily find that you've written a paragraph, but with each line overlaying the first and rendering them unintelligible. Or the first three words are on the notepad, the rest on the bedside table. Or, as a friend of mine shared, it turned out that the pen had no ink and you're left trying to decipher the indentations.

Very often my nocturnal scrawling are illegible come the clear light of day; whatever it was that was burning in my brain did not translate well to my hand. Of the messages I could read, however, I have captured some remarkable insights in my night time notebook. Consider the possibilities of the following:

'The lard in the bushes is too eggy. But THIS WILL BE ALRIGHT. It will be ALRIGHT.'

or:

'Try putting ALL of them in.' 

Alternatively, this could be a fascinating story prompt:

'He asks her, and she just stares at him. It was too late.'

No idea who he is, or who she is, or what he asked her, but the drama of those two sentences. Breaks your heart, doesn't it?

For sheer frustration value, I can't beat the following:

'THIS IS IT! THIS IS DEFINITELY IT.'

What?! What?! I really need to know..... Or then there's the terror of waking to find this written large on the notepad next to you:

"Don't do it."

On a lighter note, my husband once told me that I stirred as he came to bed after watching a late film. Without waking completely, I grasped his hand and said with some urgency:

'The blue ones. You've got to watch the blue ones.'

He wrote that one down, after he'd finished laughing.

Then there are the myriad of notes that I can't read. Excerpts include (and this is just what they look like - could be accurate, knowing my propensity to scrawl things that make no sense):

'Lemons. All of them used to be fussy lemons but now they're aggressive, unpleasant.' 

'Get your act together.'

Yes indeed.

My absolute favourite, however, is the time I awoke and reached for the notepad, and wrote the following:

'No worries.'

I even underlined it, and added a smiley face. It was clearly discernible as a smiley face, even though the eyes were slightly offset in a cubist kind of way.

'No worries. :-)' 

I like to think that one was from God.

It's my writing day. Or is it?

Well, not much writing of novels lately. Not much writing of anything, to be honest - and not much reading of books, gardening or housework either. School holidays.

I am a routine kind of person. I like to know what a day has in store, more or less, and I like to plan. I know which days I'll have time and space to sit and write, and which days I need to be out and about with other stuff to do. Then the schools break up for a couple of weeks and it all goes out of the window. I promise myself that I'll try and carve out some writing time to keep the Blog Monster fed and to make some small advances on the WIP, but I am not sufficiently spontaneous to be able to turn my thoughts to it at the drop of a hat, just in a small unexpected window of time when the children are occupied.

I am contemplating two things:

1. Time marches on. Inexorably, like a never-ending conveyor belt, it just slides on no matter what I'm doing. I have no 'pause' button. Sometimes I'd quite like a 'rewind' or even a 'Stop/eject' but I don't have those either. It just keeps on going.
2. I am going to have to fit writing round my life, not the other way round. Try as I might, things happen. The car needs to go to the garage BUT IT'S MY WRITING DAY.  The children have a school trip and I am roped in as a parent helper BUT IT'S MY WRITING DAY. It's a beautiful unseasonably warm and sunny day and I have a chance to put in the summer bulbs that are overdue for planting BUT IT'S MY WRITING DAY.

Which of these is a valid reason to move the writing time? Are they just excuses? I find that I am inclined to protect my writing time much more fiercely if I'm getting on well, in the middle of a scene or chapter that I am wrapped up in, rather than in a lull where I am a little undecided as to what happens next. Funny, that. One day an earthquake wouldn't shift me from the keyboard, and on others all of the above have occurred, and my little swivelly chair has been left empty. I have even been known to clean the windows rather than get down to it when I am feeling overwhelmed by the whole project. And that's saying something.

I need to work out what kind of priority this project should have, and whether it is realistic and sustainable. I had hoped to get a first draft written before the summer holidays, but that looks increasingly unlikely. First draft before the end of the year? But that autumn term is a busy one that leads into the chaos of Christmas, where I find that peace and quiet gets squeezed out completely for a while. On the other hand, perhaps I should just make time. Be determined to protect my writing days no matter how compelling the alternative. At what expense, this novel? Does it matter if it takes one year, two years to complete? I don't suppose anyone can answer that, really.

Today, the children are at school once more. I packed them off with PE kits, books, drinks, snacks and musical instruments and then settled down at the computer to try and remember where I left off weeks ago. I need to get back into my groove.

Well, onward and upward. I have today, which is all any of us has. Today I choose to get a few words down. Bit by bit. Bird by bird. Every novel is written one page, one paragraph, one sentence at a time.

No distractions. No procrastination. Only moderate amounts of coffee.

Come on. Words, where are you?

The sun is out, but I am going to write.
I have a pile of interesting-looking paperbacks on my bedside table, but I am going to write.

It'll be time to pick up the children, soon.

A day with words in

I had a good day with the writing, the other day.

Here's how it goes.

I am busy. I have only so much time, and lots of demands on that time. Family things, household things, life things. School runs, chauffeuring the children to swimming practice, shopping, cleaning, cooking - that kind of thing. The stuff that makes up the bulk of each day.

Generally speaking, I like my life; all the component parts of it. I've got to middle age and found that the things left in my life by this point are pretty much the things that I want there, and yet there are times when I wish it would all go away and leave me free to do this thing that I want to do more than anything else. I dream of a remote cottage lined with bookshelves, with a log fire, comfy sofas, coffee and custard creams. And WiFi.

And then, I have a day with no interruptions. If I close my eyes, I could be there in my wilderness cottage, in blissful solitude, nothing to do but work on my bestseller. I have a whole (albeit school-length - about five hours, allowing for the school runs) day to myself. Then what happens?

A whole host of things happen, ranging from excessive time spent on Facebook, to rearranging the cutlery drawer, from repotting aloe vera plants to taking a nap.

The precious time ticks away. I cannot fathom why I do this thing, but I do.

That's normal behaviour for me. Round about half past one in the afternoon, inspiration might strike, and I'll be deep in another world when it's time to extricate myself and dash off for my daughters.

Not this day! I managed almost 4,000 words, and then another 800 the following day to complete the scene. It's not at the beginning of the book; it doesn't follow in any sequence from anything else I've written so far, but it starts in one place and takes my character to another place, and I like it. I'm quite sure that it needs substantial editing, but there it is.

It was a good day. A good day words-wise, and also a good day because I proved to myself that I can do it. It is possible to make good use of time. I can sit with my fingers on the keys and arrange words on a page to tell a story.

I want to do more of that.



Image credit:
Christmas_in_Houston_079.jpg by beat0092
From Morguefile.com
Used with permission

I am writing a book. Yes, me.

I'm going to write a book.

I think it's taken me several years to work up the courage to say that, and I haven't actually worked up the courage properly just yet because this blog is unlikely to be read by anyone, as I have no intention of promoting it anywhere. This is called 'security by obscurity', apparently.

Even if it's a whisper in the dark, however, I'm saying it. I'm going to write a book. Me. Yep.

I have no idea why it's so difficult to say that I'm a writer. It somehow seems arrogant to me to make such a claim, and risks someone reading the stuff I write and rejecting it as not good enough. What I write comes from the deepest and most vulnerable part of me and for someone to laugh and say, 'You think you're a writer? What makes you think you can write a book?' makes me cringe with self consciousness.

Of course, saying 'I am a writer' also begs the response, 'Have you had anything published?' And then, of course, apart from my own little orange Blogger 'Publish' button, no, nothing published. I have yet to be validated by someone who holds the keys to a publishing contract.

This works differently if you're an artist, it seems to me. If you paint, you're an artist. Just because you don't have work in a gallery doesn't mean you're not. Likewise, a musician is a musician even without a recording contract, but somehow people apply the rules differently if you write.

So I'm breaking the rules (an uncomfortable thing for me, a very law-abiding soul) and not only am I claiming that I am a writer, I am stating that I am writing a book. And books are big.

I'm aiming for 80,000 - 100,000 words, and I want them to be well-chosen, and fit together to make something good. I had an idea for a novel several years ago and events in the last few months have inspired me to find the idea, dust it off and look at it again. The idea grew and grew and linked up with some other ideas and I started to write them down.

I've got all I need. I have a faithful little laptop, a plethora of notebooks and a couple of good pens, if the children don't disappear with them. My 'E' key is a little worn, and I suspect it might disappear completely if I get this whole thing written, but that's ok. Only Real Writers have worn vowels.                          

I'm writing a book. I am so excited and I'm finding it hard to think about anything else. I feel alive and expectant and full of anticipation and hope. I know that it won't be plain sailing and there'll be times when I feel like giving up, but for now, I feel positive.

I'm going to do this.

Who knows what might happen?