Pottering Gently – now November is behind me.

I.O.U – and me – 373 words since I missed one day in November so yer ‘tis.

Rather fun, checking on who’s published what this morning.  Most of last week hurtled by in a whirl of writerly activity so that I scarcely had time to read the blogs of those who’d been kind enough to follow me.

Sending advice across the planet to a delightful young girl on how to peel onions without crying is perhaps not what Virginia Woolf would have been doing (thinks:  could be a blog in that – shall look up a typical day in her journal and see if onions, or forks, crop up anywhere at all).

Right now I am still full of the excitement of my launch (well, me and the other seven), and a week full of Book related talks and activities culminating last night with Val McDermid sitting on the platform almost in the same place as I stood to read on Monday.

I know, but sitting next to Nelly has always been a reliable way to learn how to do things, and I can’t think of a better Nelly.

Of course, I blurted out this preposterous fact when speaking to her as she patiently signed my copy of her latest, and she was SO kind.

When I was a singer people outside that world used to say that singers could be bitchy to each other.  From my experience of working with singers, in pretty demanding situations for a beginner like me, this was so far from the truth that I want to shout about it.

Ask the best for help and you will get it in bucket-loads.  People whose lives and abilities and careers were stratospheric sat on hard chairs in echoing halls, giving their time and expertise and encouragement virtually for nothing just to lift the next generation up a step.

It’s the same with writers, be they poets or prose writers up to their necks in cleverness and crime, those who do something understand the passion that drives us  –  all of us  –  blogging away to each other, to write ourselves into existence and occasional delight.

I know about the poets;  they are letting me read one of mine on Wednesday – in public (almost).

MyNewTryMo – 2 days of November left – and far too much of me!

What is on the cards for today’s blog?

Recap the month so far?  The glitches, the loneliness of the unread writer compared with the suddenly discovered bliss of actually being read by someone who doesn’t share my DNA  – AND who has given unsolicited and gratifying feedback.  Not used to this!

Writing into space has now turned into writing for at least the four people who have taken the trouble to come up and talk to me about my story.  Changes everything, turning the need to rewrite into a pleasure rather than a chore.

Most of these blogs have been written on the run, catching the mood of the moment, hung on the peg of an experience, a surprise, something observed or overheard.  Today I am recovering from a day of being under the weather, sniffly, achy, desperately tired and – at the bottom of the heap – really worried about what is coming next.

It has been clear for some time that my efforts to lose weight have been inadequate.  Nothing here about vanity – if I had cared what I looked like I would never have reached this point on the scales – just health, a simple matter of avoiding disaster.

Well, I decided to check the facts.  Since according to all the current media coverage I appear to be absolutely one of the target patient group for an NHS Gastric Band I thought I’d check what that might entail.  Plenty of information out there, and on NHS sites so presumably kosher.  What might such a procedure entail?

Sobering stuff; pre-op, Op, and post-op – and forever – they spell it out and throw in helpful advice and suggestions.  All encouraging me to attempt the impossible in the hope of avoiding the inevitable!

That is what I will be doing in the months after the blog switches off for a bit.  I may even blog about it, but of course, there are plenty of those on the web already.

Just hope there are some bright moments in the coming months too.

MyNewTryMo – Writing me Lighter?

What will I do with the time – and the energy – saved from doing a daily blog when December kicks in?  I made a remark about loose-covers on Monday but of course that was just a cover-up for the dream (and the pun was as unintentional as puns can ever be – down, Subconscious, down!)

I had put aside the novel for the month since I didn’t feel like writing that book during NaNoWriMo .  It was all too rushed.  I wanted to polish, to hone, to pay more attention to each word rather than pile them up and sell them cheap.  So perhaps NOT writing a novel this month has whetted my appetite for the story that keeps moving through the undergrowth, getting closer by stealth.

It won’t get written like that!  Bum on seat, preferably after getting washed and dressed since otherwise the Man from Sainsbury’s will find me in my nightie when he brings the weekly goodies – what?

What’s the matter?  Can’t a girl have a biscuit? Even Virginia Woolf had to eat, though admittedly I may consume more than her entire household if appearances are anything to go by.  My death-dealing stones aren’t in my pocket, they are distributed over my frame and I intend to lose them, ounce by ounce, even while sitting down at my keyboard.

This keyboard has something in common with my piano; when young and exiled to the front room to practise it would never have occurred to me to eat.  You can’t eat and play, not my mother’s piano  anyway.  I still keep food and drink away from both sets of keys and while I strum in the front room it is at least heated these days.

So, the Creative plan is in line with the Health plan; I can’t actually swim on my swivel stool but Turquoise (for writing) is close to the Blue I chose for fitness in my life.

I shall write my way lighter.

MyNewTryMo – Oops! Two Disasters per Blog Today

All part of the fun of blogging?  I nearly posted yesterday’s blog again today AND, in all the excitement, managed to lose ALL of one of my better efforts.

Funny that – it is always the best stuff that slides off into space, or at least, one can persuade oneself of the wit and beauty of the missing phrases.

I’d tried to get ahead of myself, with a spare in the locker in case of blogger’s block, but shan’t bother with that again.  After all, I am only doing this for November on a regular daily basis, just a little steam let off, a mini-rant or just a side-order of waffle.

Thursday turned into a day of continuous magic.

A morning’s writing workshop took us all away into creative responses to poems translated or adapted, even sung by Leonard Cohen, with death as one of my prompts for poetry.

How did that turn into fun?  Because that is what writing does.  Words grow organically, quirkily, wriggling out from those hidden places where we go only rarely, surprising even the writer from whose mind’s folds they assert themselves.

Writing is a lonely art, even blogging into empty space with few echoes back.  Working with others raises the temperature even when one works, essentially, alone, and the hot-house allows more exciting blooms to flower.

Oops – purple passage alert!

Physio for my legs rounded off a perfect day.  Under instruction I can now be lazy, feet up, with a book, as the dark evening droops and drips outside.

Tomorrow?  Fresh page, maybe fresh thoughts.

MyNewWriMo – Colours and Smells

When I posted Friday’s blog it struck me that the new colours I have chosen for what I attempt to plan in my life have immediate associations with favourite smells, with the exception of Turquoise.

Red is the overwhelming heat of the heart of a peony flower, associated for ever with the crimson blooms brought to the antiseptic but stuffy maternity ward from a neighbour’s garden a day or so after my first son was born.

Purple for “Jolie Madame”, the only expensive perfume I have ever owned and worn whenever I wore my “Oratorio” dress, a dream of deepest purple pleated chiffon gathered in gold which swirled around me as I moved and shielded me as a I sang.

Orange is the warm smell of the tangerine hidden at the bottom of the narrow woolly stocking left on my bed on Christmas eve, a touch of the exotic alongside the lump of coal, chunk of dried out bread and bar of soap that weighted down the toe.

Blue is the smell of summer, of ozone by the sea, with hints of sweetness from ice-creams, suntan lotions and vinegar on chips drifting past.

Green is mostly leafy;  mint, basil and thyme and recently pine floating over the water of a fjord as the day warmed soon after dawn.  It is the smell of possibilities in cooking, of tranquillity.

Lately, and increasingly, these sharp smells of mint and pine ambush me in NHS-related moments, reinforcing my choice of green in hope of healing.

Turquoise, then? Purely visual, or something closer to my heart?

Thinking of the purple dress took me back to a summer evening singing in a hall in a stately home somewhere on the Welsh borders.  The wonderful double-cube of the grand room took the sounds we made and polished them.  The walls were painted in a triumphant shade of turquoise, almost an enamel, with deep gold gleaming on the cornice and on the frames around the dark wood doors.

That’s it, that’s why turquoise works for writing, now.

MyNewTryMo for November’s 30 days

Dressing the part and doing the Daily Dozen (x28?) Blog Words, so far so good, though quite a challenge getting to grips with what to wear.  The research took ages.

Research?  Well, the Met Office for some idea of wet/dry/cold/torrid, then a quick glance at the diary; Saturday, and not a lot on my mind apart from doing this, gathering up the fallen leaves, arranging to see the new Mike Leigh film, getting to grips with the pain in my ankle and not eating too much.

Now, what would help with that?

Rummage in the wardrobe avoiding the usual suspects and decide that today is not to be beige – respect for Turner’s art if not his wardrobe.  Reject the trousers, humdrum things with elasticated waists and added pockets to hold keys, cards, phone and the wonderful bus pass.

I have a problem with handbags.  There is a dark cupboard where they lurk but since they all weigh something when empty I tend to gather together the essentials in something as light as possible, stuff that in my backpack and line my pockets with the small flat things that run my life.

It’s one of the new things, this inability to carry loads of stuff around with me.  I think my body has gone on strike, behaving like the camel in response to the last straw.  After putting up with my stupid abuse of its potential my amazing body has stopped cooperating.  Enough is enough, after all, and with a BMI like mine it is quite fair that even tiny extra loads produce exhaustion.

The same thing applies to clothes, so when looking yesterday for a sensible waterproof coat for the winter (it is November, after all) I could barely lift the one that would fit me off the rack.  I gave up before I even tried it on, borne down by its weight.

So today it’s layers of the colourful, the lightweight and – above all – the loose.

Good Mantra for the Month?

NaNoWriMo – Not!

All power to those thousands of intrepid writers who have put their shoulders to the wheel and given up humdrum reality until December!

I too had originally signed up for the great whirligig that is the Writing Your Great Novel through November Marathon (1,666.6667 words a day) then sat down and thought about it.

Since October 10th, my first and so far only post in my New World of Blogging, I have managed 16.6190476 words a day; no THE END in sight until April 2022!

So, what else can I do in November?

MyNewTryMo, a purely personal attempt to do something – anything – constructive and slightly different with every single day.  I’ve already wasted so many of them and the supply is running out.

Nothing too daunting to start with.

Whenever I used to go on holiday (sickly tune on violin) I always used to start packing by tidying the airing cupboard.

Do they have airing cupboards any more?  I know I don’t in my new home.

It may have been a kind of Feng Shui, clearing the clutter to allow the flow of Chi that somehow wafted the right clothes into the suitcase; yet another attempt to recreate myself in a new, more exciting, persona.

So I shall get ready for November by flinging wide the wardrobe door and choosing what to wear tomorrow, something not worn for ages, something not quite right for November 1st.

Looking odd isn’t a great worry. Let’s face it, if you read my first blog you’ll know I can be invisible most of the time so clearly it doesn’t matter a hoot whether I dress appropriately or not.

Horrid word, “appropriately”, anyway.

That’s enough forward planning for now.  The rest can wait for November 1st and the great challenge of a daily blog.  It’s only a glorified version of talking to myself but it helps to have started on the list, a bit like saying something out loud.  More of a promise that way.