Sunday 15 August 2010

30. I'm writing again

I don't know entirely where it has come from. It's like a spring that has found a hairline fracture; water drips out slowly at first but, with each passing drop, the fracture gets larger and more pours out. Only I don't have water pouring out of my mind (or, at least, I certainly hope not!), it's creativity. I haven't written this much in years.

Writing has always come in fits and starts for me but I always remember wanting to write. My earliest memories are of me writing in a corner in the playground. And, even during my "dry spells", I've had a longing to buy stationery...the perfect notebook, or a special pen;  an uncontrollable urge that has seen me stock up on paper that I won't use.

The writing is freely flowing now. I'm a bit out of practise - not having read many books for a long time, my vocabulary isn't quite on the ball. It's like a gate that has rusty hinges: they need to be greased before they'll work properly and stop squeaking. But I have a copy of "The Creative Writing Coursebook" to ease my way back in.

If I was in the financial position, I would want to restart my novel ("The Novel") and finish it this time, and not have to work for another person ever again. But technically I'm skint, and I don't enjoy the feeling of insecurity that is my current jobless state. It would have been more than ideal to have won the lottery last night, if you know what I mean. But I'm a huge believer that things happen the way they do for a reason. it's not my privilege to know what that is.

They often say (who "they" are, I don't know. It's like a collective word for random people...my grandmother used to say "they do say", a devonshire phrase) that writing is a therapy in itself. You can go deeper and deeper into your own psyche and discover more about yourself than you ever thought possible. I guess I never got that deep before, but something is changing.

Apparently, I'm going through a new phase. The astrologers call it The Saturn Return. A time when you decide what it is you want in life, and a time of huge upheaval and change. You can come out the other side and even you have changed.

I don't know if this new phase of writing will stay with me. I can always hope...and I can always keep plodding on. I read somewhere that if you try at something and fail then at least you've tried, but if you don't even make an attempt at it then that's the worst failure there is. So today, I'm happy and at peace because I am trying.

4 comments:

  1. I too cannot resist a pretty notebook. I have entirely too many of them. Good luck with the writing. For me too it has always gone in fits and starts, though I am trying to be more controlled about it, and while I have often fantasized about winning the lottery and scrimped, saved and chewed a fingernail or two as I struggled to get by, I still think I'm better for having had to go through rough times. Though as I write this I am looking ahead to another month with not much money coming in and wishing once again for a lotto prize, if even a small one.

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  2. It's like a spring that has found a hairline fracture; water drips out slowly ...... I'm loving those words, keep up your writing. Good luck on the job front

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  3. Well done on the writing. And the trying.

    You are as inspiring as ever!

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  4. Alissa - many thanks for your comment :-) And thank you. I shall wish you a happy win on the lotto but only because you're based in another country and you wouldn't be taking my prize fund away from me ;-)

    TF - Thank you :-) And thanks for the luck, too.

    RR - Aw, that's a lovely thing to say. Thank you so much. :-)

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