Routine, routine, my kingdom for a bit of routine, please . . .

"The human spirit lives on creativity and dies in conformity and routine.” so says
Vilayat-Inayat-Khan

Not so, I say.

Maybe if you are a Sufi master free to spend all your time meditating; clever phrases that betoken deep insights flow from your lips in a non stop stream, and your disciples hang on your every word. But if life throws you a nasty one, right between the legs when you were least expecting it and the bugger just won’t go away, tripping you up over and over again?

Give me routine, I cry.

(Actually, Pace all you adherents of Sufi teachings out there, - I am not making fun of you, but does sitting, meditating and giving birth to wise words on a loop  not in itself smack of some kind of routine?)

No, Joyce Carol Oates’ words are much more to my liking.

“The domestic lives we live - which may be accidental, or not entirely of our making - help to make possible our writing lives; our imaginations are freed, or stimulated, by the very prospect of companionship, quiet, a predictable and consoling routine.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Since Beloved fell ill my creative juices have entirely dried up, shrivelled and shrunk to the size and consistency of tiny mouse droppings, too small to leave much of a visible trace. You’d think that I’d pounce on the hours he sleeps during the day, when I am not on duty, but the spiritual wherewithal is lacking, all I find is a heap of dust. Aristotle says:" we are what we repeatedly do”. At present I repeatedly do nothing worth the mention, except yearn for an uninterrupted night’s sleep.

Give me the comfort of surrendering to life on autopilot for all mundane, everyday tasks; make the day predictable in all unimportant aspects. May thoughts, processes, decisions and actions run in straight lines, let me do things the way I have always done them. Then, and only then, will my spirit regain the freedom to roam creative spheres.

Contrary

While my mac was away from home for a bit of R&R I felt utterly bereft. Every time I passed the empty desk there was a tiny jolt. Fine, I said to myself, so you can’t go online to blog but you could prepare a blog post or catch up on emails. For a moment I was quite serious about that, eagerly making for the computer corner, until I realised that, no, I can’t do that either. I use the mac for writing, researching and blogging, ipads have small keyboards, they’re of no use to me for ‘proper’ writing.

There was definitely something missing to which I have become seriously addicted. How do people who say they have no need of a computer manage to live with themselves?

After an absence of a day and a half mac’s R&R was over and I could fetch him (him?) home. Mike the macman explained that all was well again and that he’d added an extra 2Gb of RAM to the measly 1Gb available on such old (old? OLD?) desktop computers and that that would speed it up a bit and that he’d sorted out a lot of inconsistency on the hard disk. I felt exactly as I do at the Vet’s when I pick up Millie after a minor op. I embraced my mac as I embrace Millie and put him on the back seat. Millie only gets to ride in the boot (of the hatchback - last time I mentioned that Millie rides in the boot somebody threw up their (blogging)-hands in horror at the very idea of such cruel incarceration).

But here comes the contrary bit: once I’d carried the mac upstairs to my study and set him up on his desk, I reconnected everything, checked that all was in working order and promptly ignored him for the rest of the day.

A bit like a man; it’s nice to know they’re around to use anytime you need them.

It All Depends On What You Mean By Writing

Yesterday morning the writers’ group met. I didn’t go.
Sent no apologies for absence, sent no explanation, just didn’t go. Not for the first time either.

Another failure on my part to stick with something, another instance of short lived enthusiasms? Feeling guilty is what I do well; I was programmed early. Catholicism helped, but my parents had a not inconsiderable hand in it, one of the few areas where they didn’t leave me to bring myself up.

Not this time. No way is this my fault.

Why are so many people satisfied with mediocrity? I suppose, if you start by expecting nothing, then mediocrity is progress. You could ask: who says something is mediocre, who determines what is a good poem or an interesting piece of writing? Well, excuse me, I do in this case. I am the one who has to listen to these extremely poor efforts.

There is the ex film maker who finds it easy to knock off half a dozen lines of verse and, without another look, sends them off via her phone as contributions to the meeting. There is the ex maths and science teacher whose great loves are Italian drama and poetry and whose frequent attempts to emulate them only succeed in murdering the originals. There is the ex surveyor, who is living proof that a talent for strict attention to detail and accuracy, coupled with a complete lack of imagination, may be no barrier to professional advancement but do not make a writer or poet. The leader, a sweetly vague elderly woman who writes whimsical poems and almost no prose, is about to be ousted by the ex film maker, who has enough energy and drive to change the dynamics of the group, were she so inclined; however, she prefers to push full steam ahead with publishing hair-raisingly bad verse in conjunction with the photography group, which means we’ll be running before we have learned to crawl. The embarrassment alone would kill me.

I sit on the periphery and fume, cross with myself for having driven into town and used up the best part of the day on another futile mission. It’s not that I haven’t tried. I have suggested that we do what other U3A writing groups do, become more structured and set challenges: 300 words, say, on a first line, a piece of prose, a newspaper article, a poem on a particular subject, even those blogging favourites, Twitter or Flash fiction. “No, I want to be creative and write what I feel like.” This came from the absolute dullest member of the group, the one whose readings have the power to send me into a paroxysm of rage, if he hasn’t sent me to sleep first. When advised “don’t tell, show; you could bring the story to life that way” (ha!) he answered, “ I am not looking for anyone else to read this, only my children when I’m gone.” What! If you don’t want to learn anything, why are you here?

I would say that the others in the group have been exposed to similar cultural influences as I have, be they books, plays, poetry, music, all of a reasonable standard. All are educated ex professionals. Yet, as far as I can tell, when it comes to their writing, all critical faculties are set aside. Are we programmed  not to see the faults in our own work? If an amateur dressmaker makes a dress that doesn’t fit over the hips, say, does she give herself 'A for Effort' and leave it at that, or does she go back and alter the dress? And am I allowed to say that the dress doesn’t fit?

Criticism in the writers’ group is not wanted, not even the constructive kind. One very timid lady confessed that she would feel hurt if someone criticised her creations and several nodded their heads in sympathy. (Which one of you, who have stayed with this rant so far, is saying: "If fulsome praise is all they want, why don’t they blog?”)

If I sound angry, then yes, I admit to being angry. Angry and disappointed. We started out so well. Only four (incl. me) of the original members are still with the group; the emphasis is no longer on writing for the pleasure of it. We were supposed to encourage each other, praise, but also criticise our work and learn a little about the craft in the process. All we do now is puff ourselves up and although we don’t say “Wow! Brilliant!” we never say “could have done better”.

It’s time I wrote my letter of apology.

Complaints

The indomitable L.C. Skupien of Retirement Daze recently announced that she had been inspired by another blogger to try and refrain from complaining for a whole month; an admirable endeavour. If anyone were entitled to the odd moan, it would be L.C. She is patience and courage personified.

I loathe people who are habitually dissatisfied and feel entitled to share their dreary monologues with me and if I see someone coming whose conversation is bound to turn into a long moan I cross the road to avoid them. And if I can’t avoid them I plead lack of time to get away from them. But what of those of us who indulge in occasional bouts of complaining? What about me? My first reaction to L.C.'s post was to say :

"Really, no more complaining?
O dear, I wonder if I could do that.

I love raving and ranting and complaining. It lets off steam and afterwards I can get back to admiring the sunny side of life.

If I didn’t complain about politicians, greedy people, unkindness, bigots, the weather,  falling over the dog, I’d have a lot of spare time.”

Is this a matter of “my complaints are justified”, while "yours are misguided” and "his are plainly ridiculous and a great bore”? Is complaining another instance of ‘in the eye of the beholder’?

A long time ago, in another place and life, I was a member of a women’s group. We ostensibly met to keep our brains ticking over while being tied to small children and kitchen sinks but that didn’t stop some of us from spending a lot of time at each meeting complaining about husbands. Not me, I was too embarrassed about my then spouse to hint at his manifold shortcomings in public. But others let their feelings out: inappropriate sex, no sex, too much sex; always out, probably with a floozy; overly finicky and a control freak; mean with money, but spending plenty away from the family.  These regular airings of grievances may have been boring, but the women went home and, for a while, the load had lightened. The letting-off-steam kind of complaining.

Then there’s the righteous-anger-kind of complaining. Politicians or anyone in authority; bankers; the idle and sex-mad young; immigrant benefit scroungers; the filthy rich/undeserving poor; unmarried mothers after a council flat; deviant same-sex-couples who want to get married/ have children; that chap in his fancy car who just cut me up; the woman at the charity do who never ever stays behind to do the dishes; the teenagers who hang around on street corners doing God-knows-what, drugs I shouldn’t wonder, I should like to get hold of their parents; and on and on, take your pick and complain to your heart’s content.

What about going on protest sit-ins or marches? Is protesting about another road cutting through a water meadow, the Iraq war, banker’s bonuses,  the establishment of a gambling/red light district in a city, littering the countryside with wind farms, the destruction of the rain forest, the same as complaining?

I have a lot of experience of the complaining-in-advance method. I was absolutely certain that two meetings last week would prove unbearably dull and irritating. “Why would I want to go to a German conversation group. Nobody there is the least bit fluent and they all look to me to find their words for them.” The other meeting was the writers’ group. “They don’t really want to work at it and that silly little man who annoys me with his desperately dull and lifeless readings will bang on about having to give his creativity free rein instead of being shackled to a theme or challenge.” This kind of complaining-in-advance is also known as complaining-from-a-superior-position. In the event both meetings proved constructive. The German group read - haltingly, but enthusiastically - a piece by an author previously unknown to me and the writers’ group showed willing to try setting themes, while the little man kept quiet - without me having threatened to do him harm!

Maybe there are two sides to this complaining business, as with every blessed thing on this earth. Voicing dissatisfaction with the status quo - also known as nagging in the case of a frustrated housewife, is not necessarily to be deplored, whereas watching injustice and destruction and doing nothing definitely is. Rolling over and letting bad things happen without getting passionately involved is a cop out, an excuse designed to shirk responsibility.

Personally, I am in favour of moaning a little less and doing a bit more of the protesting, and not just for lent.

An Ordinary Saturday at Valley's End.

On this misty, frosty Saturday morning the sun finally came out at about eleven and the twigs on the laburnum and amelanchier were still clothed in their festive winter finery. I'd hate a garden without trees and shrubs, what would I have to look at in winter?

I've been trying to do my income tax return online this morning - late as usual - but also as usual, the HMRC website refused me entry, insisting that 'You Have Not Been Granted Access To This Site' when I typed in my own reference numbers. That means that I'll be sitting at the end of a telephone line on Monday, listening to some godawful canned music and waiting for one of their operatives to become free. I shall do my returns on paper again in future, if they let me.

I'm feeling a little merry. I have said it before, morning drinking doesn't agree with me. We had an invitation to a pre-lunch drinks party and, although I always go to these things with the firm intention to stick to orange juice, I rarely follow my own instructions. The host greeted me by saying he had a lovely Sancerre for me to try and I was lost. I did the Sancerre fully justice, with only a few bites to mop up the juices. Which meant, that for me at least, the party became very enjoyable. I'd hate you to think that I overdo my appreciation of the grape, but I can tell the difference between plonk and a drink worth having. And if it's worth having, I'll have it.

There were several writers of non-fiction present at the party, a historian and a biologist as well as a biographer; feeling uninhibited I button-holed them and asked their opinion on the best process to get the work of writing done. The consensus was "Concentration", "Discipline", "Ruthlessness vis-a-vis Distraction" and "A Quiet And Private Working Area". "Regular Working Hours, No Matter What", also came up. Considering, that between them, these people, all men and therefore free from  Cyril Connolly's "pram in the hall" being a sombre enemy of good art, have a couple of dozen books to their names, I rather trust their method. I may not have a pram in the hall but I do have a household to run. The only fiction writer present, who also writes poetry, is more like me: maybe there's time today or maybe there'll be time tomorrow. But then, the only books he's published were non-fiction English and poetry text books, his literary efforts languish in the drawers of his study.

Having had all this stimulation in the morning, I felt like a long sit-down after a very late lunch. To that end I treated myself to a couple of hours with the second part of the Larsson Millennium trilogy. I absolutely love what I've read so far. I've mentioned the books to people whose opinion I respect;  one said he disliked the violence, somebody else said they found the long, descriptive passages off-putting,  another fiction writer couldn't find an explanation for the runaway success the trilogy has had, because it is actually quite a demanding read, meticulously researched, needing concentration and an interest in journalism, big business and corruption in high places. Not the usual thriller fare, in other words. I love thrillers, solving the puzzle along with the writer is a relaxing exercise. Larsson doesn't give much away, his story unfolds in ever greater circles, drawing in more and more characters, increasing the suspense and making me afraid for the safety of threatened protagonists.

I'm reading this as if I were listening to the ominous sound of distant drum beats getting closer and closer.

The evening shall be rounded off with last week's episode of Sherlock Holmes, with Benedict Cumberbatch. An evening in front of the box. Everybody who has seen it says it's great. I am looking forward to another treat.

Absolutely my kind of an ordinary Saturday.

Creative Writing - Progress Report 2

Not easy, this writing lark. In fact, it's downright hard. For years I've translated other people's words, written reports for conferences, political tracts, articles and polemical essays. I've written long letters and journals. But I've never written anything which is entirely about myself. This blog is my first experience of writing in the first person singular.

First thing to admit is that I've written several half chapters, but have completed none since Progress Report No. 1. I am floundering. I have several excuses, (I'm very good at excuses): I was unwell before Christmas and hardly able to think straight. Then came the festive season which always throws me. Since then it's been really hard to motivate myself. I have spent a lot of time thinking about the shape this memoir should take, how to get into it; I have drawn up outlines, copied some of the reminiscences posted on this blog to use as a basis for chapters to be fleshed out and mentally paraded the characters I intend to include.

I find it hard to stick to a schedule; there's always something else that gets in the way of writing. Should I opt for early mornings, before the day proper begins? But then Benno hears me moving about and wants attention; 'feed me and let me out', he whines. Should I opt for late evenings? I often blog late at night, or read. Reading is, of course, part of writing. Without regular and varied reading there is no writing.

After breakfast jobs need doing around the house, there's laundry and tidying up, there are meals to be prepared. After lunch it's dog walking, shopping, etc., you all know the score. Being retired should mean that the days are entirely at my disposal. Fat chance! On at least one or two days a week I am not at home at all.

Another problem I've come up against, is that blogging is entirely different from reading or writing seriously. I enjoy blogging, I've made friends I would never otherwise have made, but the blogging and writing mindset are different. I know some of you disagree, but I find writing requires me to concentrate fully, for hours, on the same subject; it requires focus. With blogging I can stop and start, read a few posts, write one, comment here and there; it doesn't matter how often I am interrupted, I can always go back later. Once my writing thread is interrupted, it's hard to get back into the flow. Beloved is a problem here, he thinks I might like a cup of tea, or he comes and asks me what he should do about vegetables for supper, say.

Then there's research. As this memoir is set in a different country from the one I live in, research is something I can't do by looking up the local records. Not everything is available on the internet. I may have to employ somebody to dig up names and help me with exactly pinpointing dates and events. Historical facts need checking; although this memoir is about my own memories, they need to be placed in context, otherwise the whole thing makes no sense.

Ideas and advice, please, from all you writers and wannabe writers out there who read this blog, and if there are writers amongst those of you who remain in the shadows, who neither comment nor join, but read (I know you are out there, Google has told me), I'd be grateful for your input too.  How do you/did you overcome lack of motivation and discipline?

Progress Report on Writing - 1

Thank you everybody for commenting on the previous post about my intention to write a memoir. I'd like to say right away, that I won't stop blogging,  I am an addict. I will also try and visit my followers' blogs and anybody else who leaves an interesting or constructive comment. Perhaps it would be of general interest if I post an occasional progress report; there are a number of people in the blog world who are delving into their history and writing about it, we might learn from each other. It would also force me to continue writing as I'd find it hard to admit defeat publicly.

I am consumed with this idea of writing a memoir at the moment - no half measures for Friko, there's that 'bald-headed' streak coming through again -; I had a dream last night which was a textbook example of the subconscious dealing with daytime thoughts. My very confused and frightening dream told me how hard and strenuous the work will be and that I will have to rely entirely on my own recollections, and do some serious research.

I have already learned the difference between my own blogging and serious writing: a bit of waffling does no harm on a blog, facts don't need to be seriously researched, context doesn't matter and a blog post is best kept short, whereas a story will not come alive unless you add colour and detail and get the chronology right. I can write a blog post in twenty minutes flat, whereas the first draft detailing the events of just one day took me the best part of three days.

One chapter of Two Thousand Five Hundred Forty Seven words written  -  how many to go?

Writing is Such Sweet Agony

Some weeks are very quiet, nothing at all out of the ordinary happens and going grocery shopping is about as exciting as it gets. Weeks that feel a bit like pulling a steam engine uphill by a strap over your shoulder.
(I had to get a picture in, even though there will be no further mention of steam engines and they have absolutely nothing to do with this post)

Then there are weeks that are full of chores and appointments, the dog needs the vet, a doctor's visit is due, the washing machine needs fixing and even the book you're reading is the most boring tome, destined for the charity shop pile.

Occasionally, weeks take flight, leaving you breathless and exhilarated; I've just had one of the latter. Not that they happen very often, I probably couldn't stand the pace for more than one week at a time. As it is, I am glad the weather has turned gloomy and cold, giving me the perfect excuse to put my feet up and watch documentaries on tv for the rest of the day.

It started with an impromptu dinner party at my house. Some friends are going away for a month and we felt like having a convivial evening before they left. I also invited another guest whose work frequently takes him away from Valley's End. All three are connected with literature, drama and writing and all three are the sort of guests a hostess dreams of: lively, intelligent, without food fads and foibles and happy to drink a glass of wine or two. Okay, you might say, there are lots of people like that. Yes, there are, not lots, but some; what made these people stand out as far as this hostess is concerned is the fact that they all appreciate my writing! A blogger friend said in a comment the other day that I don't seem to be fishing for applause for my posts. Oh, but Mary D., you are wrong, I like applause as much as the next person, and to have these people come right out and say how much they liked my pieces in the local paper  absolutely made my evening.

More stimulation followed a day later. I belong to a group of people who get together once a fortnight to speak German. I am the only native German speaker, the others are British and their command of the language is varied.  Sometimes the afternoon is dead boring, people stumble over words and I am constantly translating and explaining. This time we took an easily understandable piece from a German newspaper about warring neighbours; people who fight each other to the death about a parking space outside their homes or chuck dustbins through windows when the volume of late night music becomes more than somebody can bear. And God help you if you let your sheep stray beyond your own land and they trespass and nibble the grass in my meadow!  Human nature is the same the world over, we all have similar stories to tell and we all enjoy a malicious snicker about the misfortune of others occasionally.

My special pleasure derives from standing just a fraction of a millimetre on the periphery and watching the show.

The writers' group seems to have found a firm base. No doubt, the cast of characters will change as we go along but the ones who were there this week all seemed seriously interested. We had some really good work presented to the group: an Irishman brought a fantastic poem on 'The Troubles', which he read in a broad Irish accent. Once the vague old lady had finally found one of the two poems she wanted to read - she never found the other - she turned in a marvellously lyrical piece of work about a small child growing up by the river Severn; she is obviously still the same, unfocussed, dreamer she was then, living in a world to which few earthlings have access. I asked how long she had been writing poetry and she said:

"I was taken away from home when I was three, when my mother died, and never knew where home had been. My teacher at school allowed me to sit in the library when other children had reading practice and I found the book of poetry. One of the poems said: 'I remember, I remember / The house where I was born / The little window where the sun / came peeping in at morn; (a poem by Thomas Hood). So I thought that poets must be very special people, because they knew where home was and if I became one then maybe I would remember too."

And finally, as the newsreaders say, all this literature has made my own fingers itch to pick up a discarded piece of work and start again. For one whole day this week I have been sitting at the computer composing a new chapter of a memoir, about just one day. I had planned to read this piece to the writers' group, but it grew and grew and is still not completed. The work flowed easily, I am happy with what I have written so far, and I will continue with it. As I said to my friend Deborah, who is going through similar birth pangs (she won't thank me for saying this out loud), "If I don't do it now, I never will".

And that might be the reason why you will see a little less of me round here.

True Love Spurned !

Tess Kincaid's Magpie Prompt No. 89

It was still dark outside, a thin shard of a paler shade of black was beginning to creep round the edge of the curtains drawn across the window. Not long now, and he would be with me. Snug under my covers, I could hear him move about in the room next door, the room where he spent his afternoons and evenings. Sometimes, of course, he left the house altogether, leaving me to snooze, idle and unwanted; without him I had no life, no life at all. It was he who tickled me into being, it was he who could awaken the song in my heart, every fibre of my body vibrating, wave after wave of happiness ringing out in delight, filling my soul with joy, shuddering to an overwhelming feeling of satisfaction when he finally came to a halt many hours later.

Yes, I looked forward to our regular meetings, when he concentrated fully on me and my needs. The whole morning belonged to me, I had his undivided attention. Knowing how lucky I was I never stopped being grateful, served him well, taking hardly any time off. Very rarely did I suffer from any kind of illness, but when it happened, he wrapped me up tenderly and carried me to a hospital, where I sat on a bench while somebody else's rough hands poked about in my innards, dripping grease over my sinews and adjusting my muscles. I disliked being touched by anyone but him, but his pleasure at having me all to himself again, back home, after an episode of absence, made up for the indignity.

Finally, I heard the door open and he came over to where I sat, still hidden from view. I could feel his hands lifting the covers, folding them back carefully, slowly exposing me to his full gaze. I shivered a little as he ran his fingers delicately over my keys. Contrary to his usual custom, he did not sit down in front of me, but stood poised above me, looking at me with troubled eyes.

For the first time in our long and mutually satisfying relationship I had no idea what was coming next.

"Well, old girl," he said, "It'll break my heart. You have seen me through many a difficult birth. Sitting here, stroking you, pounding you for so many years, and releasing my creative energies into you has brought me success and recognition. But let's face it, " he continued, "you have grown old in my service, your smooth bodywork and efficient rhythms have become rough and unreliable. It's time to replace you with one of the new-fangled machines, which, I hear, even tell me when I get the spelling wrong. Admit it, you never did that. "

He patted me on the head. "I'll always appreciate your stalwart nature and true heart and I'll never love anyone as I have loved you. Believe me, and I mean this most sincerely, it's not you, it's me."

I was shocked rigid. My keys sat stiff and unmoving; a small tinkle, like a funeral bell, rang out when he picked me up with both hands and deposited me unceremoniously on the bottom shelf of his bookcase, and covered me up again.

Here I've been sitting for weeks now, drying up and silent. I heard the usurper being lifted into my rightful place. Apparently the upstart needs a lot of juice delivered via electric cables and something called a provider to get him going; he is clearly a lot less accommodating than I was. Heartless, I would say.

As for him, my lord and master, the one whom I helped to create deathless prose? I know he is not happy now, not nearly as happy as he was with me. I have heard him shout and swear in frustration. Far be it from me to gloat, but I know for a fact, that the upstart has managed to lose a whole chapter of the new book.

I have to admit to a little frisson of Schadenfreude.

Writing Group

New season, new school year, new writing group. Who said I give up easily?

After the fiasco with the Creative Writing Class last spring, I thought I'd see who else might have it in for my style of writing, so why not give the newly founded Creative Writing Group of the local  u3a a try?  Most of you will know that U3A stands for University of the Third Age and is open, free of charge, to people of age 50 and over. Whatever you wish to study, whatever your previous level of expertise, there will be a course for you. And if there isn't one, somebody will start one.


This CW group is run by members, there is no lecturer, nobody is in charge. Naturally, there will be one member who will dominate the group, talk the most, be the most decisive, the most easily offended and generally let the rest know that her/his word is law. That is as inevitable as one person in the group being the tallest, or the oldest.

The inaugural meeting took place in a private bungalow in the bubble end of a cul-de-sac in the rabbit warren of identical streets above the old town. You might have been on any new housing estate on the edge of any erstwhile small market town in the UK. I do wish town planners weren't chosen on the basis of who can produce the nastiest, dullest, most unimaginative and repetitive rows of dwellings; no wonder the families inhabiting them are pretty interchangeable themselves, their highest ambition in life being to own wall-to-wall home entertainment units to watch reality tv.

However, the owner of the bungalow where we met, a delightful elderly lady, softly spoken and slightly vague in manner, seemed to have no tv at all; instead the tiny sitting room held a piano, a sofa and easy chairs, a small table and bookshelves. There was barely room for the resident thinly elegant lurcher to weave through, much less for the eight people, plus hostess, assembled to discuss procedure. Everybody seemed very keen, ideas were produced as to frequency of meetings,  possible venues, subjects to tackle; it was decided, for the time being, that members should produce a piece of writing for each meeting, leaving us free to choose poetry, short stories, memoirs, non-fiction, and even chapters of novels; in short, the new group's success was assured. One person went so far as to suggest that we should publish a book containing the best of our writing at the end of the first year.

Calling yourself 'a writer' and actually writing something have very little to do with each other. When the next meeting came round, I was the only person present, apart from the hostess, who had attended the inaugural get-together. Only one of the others had sent apologies for absence, all the rest of them had quietly faded away. Luckily, there were three new people who had been unable to come before, two of whom had the good sense to bring their manuscripts.

We have now had the third meeting, in a private room in a pub in the old town; a much more suitable venue, where we all fit easily round a large table. One further member dropped away, but another two new participants appeared, with one apology, bringing the group to a possible grand total of between six and nine members.

This process of natural elimination will eventually come to an end and I am hopeful that we will soon settle down to a manageable number of people who want to write. Hopeful, because everybody present happily read a poem, a bit of a memoir, a short story; we are getting to know each other and characters are beginning to emerge.

We meet for two hours mid-morning. As this is England, a tea break is expected by all; two hours without the obligatory drink is unthinkable. In the pub this is no problem, we simply order before we sit down and a waitress brings a tray. When I mumbled apologetically, that I could manage without refreshment for two hours, my fellow writers pitied me. " It's nice to have a drink, makes it more comfortable and we can have a little chat." I was afraid of that, but I'll be happy if the chat concerns itself with writing.

The end of year best-of-writing collection was mentioned again; we'd better get down to it.

The Way We Were

Tess Kincaid's Magpie No. 79

"These old photographs could go", she says. "Who would ever want to look at them again? There's only me now and I have no further interest in them. There won't be room for them in the retirement home".

She rummages around in the shoebox on the table in front of her and picks a photo at random.  Peering at the faded print with her short-sighted eyes, she says to her carer:  "Pass me my glasses, there's a dear. I might as well have a quick look through, although nothing much will come of it. It's all so long ago".

The picture is clearer now, she recognises faces. "Why, that's me and Ted and  ........
She stops. A sudden flush of shame, hot and unpleasant, rises up in her. She feels her stomach turning over and a wave of nausea hits her.Who'd have thought that after all these years she'd suddenly feel guilty.

She stares at the picture. A window into the past opens up and, for the first time in sixty years, she allows herself to come face to face with the way she was.

She and Ted and . . . . yes, Shirley, that was her name . . . .
Best friends they were, the three of them; together as children and together as teenagers, all adventures, all secrets shared; others called them "The Three Musketeers"; there was no separating them.

How young they were, how innocent, a world of boundless possibilities awaiting them, the road ahead straight and even. When they were small they had sworn to be friends eternally; whatever happened, they would remain true to each other.

And then Ted and Shirley fell in love.

Suddenly, they were not three but two plus one; still friends, still close, still spending time together; like here, in the photo. She continued to stare at it, her hand shaking a little. She remembered clearly now, they were all off to the lake for a day's swimming and picnicking;  happy and carefree, Ted and Shirley sitting in the back seat, probably holding hands, while she sat next to the driver, her dad, alone, in the front.

The shock of the realisation that her world was collapsing, that she was no longer part of an inseparable unit, hit her hard. She could see it in the eyes looking out at her from the photo; could also see the beginnings of the scheming girl she was about to become. Suddenly, she hated Shirley. She did not, and never could, hate Ted, for she too loved him.

She put the photo down.

It hadn't been hard to separate Ted and Shirley; she flirted and promised, she flattered and beguiled, until Ted had lost his head one summer's evening and kissed her.

No, it hadn't been hard at all.

Her eyes clouded over. Her marriage to Ted had been happy and contented for the most part, neither better nor worse than most marriages. She had no regrets.

"Get rid of the box", she said to the carer, as she slid the photograph back in between the others.

Well, you would say that, wouldn't you,

all of you being bloggers. You and I could hardly say that blogging is a waste of time, could we?

Thank you, everybody, for your generous and intelligent comments to the previous post. I value your opinion;  all of you basically advised me to leave the class, seeing how I felt about it.

So why did I not do that earlier? Teacher several times made fun of me and my need for following the rules of grammar,  for wanting prepositions and tenses used correctly.  Ok, this may be slightly outlandish nowadays, but then 'outlandish' is exactly what I am, having learnt English as a foreign language, by rote and by rule, from an early age onwards.  She even called me a 'professional foreigner' once.

I think I stuck it out because of conditioning in childhood, which this particular teacher managed to tap into. (She also reminded me of my mother) I went to school at a time when children were expected to behave themselves, to respect their elders and betters, before the time when the freedom of individual expression became the magic formula, the great be-all-and-end-all of education. In my day the omniscience of teachers was not questioned, we did, mostly, as we were told. I believe that my discomfort in the creative writing class arose from the gulf between my upbringing and my distrust of the tuition, apart from teacher's inclination to become personal when she found her view challenged.

The days of blind obedience to those in authority are over, I am glad to say, but I still feel that many of us  have  discarded respect for others at the same time. Has the pendulum swung too far? I hear that there are schools where teachers fear children and some parents, where children are not only insolent but physically aggressive.

Are there still professions which demand the same automatic respect they once did? Doctors, the clergy, teachers, bank managers, the legal profession, politicians, for instance, do we still see them as people to look up to? Beloved and I belong to the class of rogues and vagabonds; however, when representatives of the previously mentioned professions sit round my dinner table I find they boil their breakfast egg in the same water and for as long as I do.

Automatic respect for the sake of one's calling, is it a thing of the past?

"Blogging Is Dust"

"it's a waste of time, an exercise in futility, indulged in when the blogger hasn't anything better to do".

Or so my creative writing teacher says. We are not friends.

If anyone could do with this wonderfully stimulating community of friends, she could. Living in 'Long-Suffering-in-the-Mud", a hamlet of a dozen farm cottages and one large farm, with neither pub nor shop,  housebound with three small children, with a neighbour in the immediately attached cottage who makes it her business to measure, to the inch, where cars visiting the teacher's cottage park - on an otherwise completely empty and car-free muddy country lane - you'd think she'd greet the benefits of modern communication with a grateful tear in her eye.

Not so. I made the mistake of telling her that I blog and called the wrath of the scorned woman down upon my innocent head. Teacher sees herself as a bit of a poet. Not just a bit, but a published poet, with no less than three publishing contracts. All I needed to do was to check out Amazon or Virago, she said, and I'd find her. I checked, no teacher. That may be entirely due to my lack of tracking expertise; when I asked for enlightenment in the form of an url, I got no reply.

Teacher has, in the past, had a blog herself. She tried it for a while and found that she did little else but bitch and moan, she said. She found that friends who had blogs used them to fill in the gaps between 'proper' writing jobs. (Personally, I think trying to keep a blog going with interesting posts, is no mean feat. I should know.)  She also found that criticism was unwanted, that blogging is primarily for 'stroking' egos.  I concede, she may have a point there, but nobody forces anyone to pour lavish praise on blogs they don't really value. Actually, that would indeed be a silly waste of time and pretty pointless.

When I tried to defend writing a blog, mentioning some of the interesting people I have 'met' this way, she threw them straight back at me: "what are you doing here then, if you have access to and communicate with people whose writing you value so highly?" she asked, thereby making it personal.

Now I have to tell you, what "Here" in this context means: 'Here' is a kitchen in this small cottage in Long-Suffering-In-The-Mud, a kitchen table big enough for four students - three ladies well into middle-age and an elderly gent, who is also teacher's father - and a cat walking all over the table. This being rural England, you have to have a tea break in the two-hour session; tea breaks and gossip go together, so, taking into consideration a delayed start due to teacher having to finish her make-up, finish kneading bread rolls for dad or finishing off a conversation with a friend, who is not a member of the class, 'Here' means a very unprofessional total of max. one hour twenty minutes concentrated work.

I could forgive all that quite easily, we are in the sticks here with few options open; perhaps she was a professional who has fallen on hard times and is trying to make ends meet.  But this was not the only occasion I felt attacked personally - not my work, me - and I had already begun to feel uncomfortable on previous occasions. She was so vehement about blogging being 'dust' that she managed not only to knock my confidence but also make me question the pleasure I get from blogging.

For the past two weeks I have spent far less time online than I usually do, have not visited as many blogs and posted fewer posts than before. You may not believe this, but Friko's confidence is a very delicate plant, easily damaged and it has taken me some time to prop it up again.

I have decided to keep on blogging for as long as I enjoy it and give up this particular class instead. The Easter holidays are about to start and I shan't go back for the new term.

Creative Writing Class

I've mentioned before that I've joined a Creative Writing From Life class. I'm by no means certain that this class is quite what I'm looking for but, for the time being, it'll do. We are led by a lecturer whose main aim seems to be to create as much distance between the students and herself as she can.

A recent  assignment was to write a 'found poem'. Each student was asked to contribute a word, a trigger for a line, twelve in all, the whole to become a poem. 

We came up with mundane words like time of day, weather, location, an item of clothing, a colour,a feeling,  an allusion to a historical period, a foreign word, a place by water, a relative, a mechanical contrivance, etc. You get the drift.

It proved to be quite hard work. I did several drafts, trying to incorporate as many of the set contexts as I could. In the end the class didn't even discuss the poems we had written. For some reason the lecturer didn't find the time. Perhaps she still will, but as I have worked at it, you shall be the beneficiaries of my efforts. This is the second draft:

The Visit 

Mocked by the thin sun of a February morning

she shut the door on the cocoon of her house.

She shrugged herself deeper into her coat.

Distaste tugged at the corners of her lipsticked mouth.

Spiked heels meticulously picking a path,

her gleaming car received her, purring pleasure,

flattering the tedious road ahead.

Bound for the old house by the sea,

shrouded in memories of long ago,

where faded women kept watch over a past

which was hers too,

grey clouds overwhelmed the last rays of the morning’s sun.

© photo and words USW

Meditation

This infant year, how very young it is.

So much to learn, so many steps to take

Into the dark unknown.

The light of Christmas gone, 

Into the deepest, most impenetrable forests.

And yet, how old this year is, so many aeons old.

Standing by the window, 

Watching blackbirds and thrushes shiver in the cold

And small birds scrabble for crumbs on the bird table,

We are slowly growing old, the years and I.

The world is black and white and muddy brown,

Winter flexes his muscle, 

His white coat hiding the land living in want of colour,

Fields yearning for crops, for new growth and abundance.

January proudly dancing on ice 

Leaves me hesitant and timid, afraid to miss my step.

They say the days are lengthening, 

I cannot tell.

Yet it is true, there’s hope.

They say that things will change,

That kindness and good sense will now prevail, 

I cannot tell.

They say we’ll live in peace and gentle harmony

With our Earth, our neighbours, and ourselves.

We can but dream.

How young, how very young this new year is.

I Did It! I Wrote a Sonnet!

Some of you know that I have very recently started to attend a Creative Writing class. Last week's homework was to write a sonnet. A proper, Shakespearean sonnet.' 4-4-4-2'. abab, cdcd, efef, gg.

So,  "Go away and write a sonnet", she said.

She gave us exactly twenty minutes' worth of explanation, a few pointers where to find examples and one of her own, which she admitted, was not perfect.  One line was not a perfect pentameter!

I ask you! How could she!

Ever since I left class last week I have been in a tremendous tizzy. Firstly, I lacked an idea. Write a sonnet about what? Love, a philosophical question,  a special object ? You have to start with an idea for a subject, otherwise you're stuck from the off.

I tried roses, love and philosophy not growing so well on my compost. I got as far as a first line for the first quatrain.  Then I tried out various techniques, like a whole lot of words that rhyme with roses or rosebushes, petal, scent and blushing brides, mildew, mulch and manure.

No mileage in that. I can grow roses, but not their poetic equivalent.

I read reams of sonnets. The more I read the more I knew I could never write one.

I asked Jinksy for help - you know the annoying blogger whose blog is riddled with poems, all her own. She sent me one of hers, a perfect example of the art, telling me how easy it is. I can tell you I was sorely tempted to pinch it and pass it off as my own. 

I could always feign illness and miss the class, hoping that teacher would have moved on to a nice, easy, short story, or maybe the definitive novel of the 21st century by the next lesson. I might have stood a chance with them.

It was that clever blighter, good old Stephen Fry, national treasure and avuncular polymath, and The Ode Less Travelled, who unlocked the poet within and helped me to give birth to my very own first sonnet. I imagined his fruity tones reading the chapter on sonnets and setting me an exercise, very kindly supplying the subject too. Apathy.

And would you believe, it worked. It is a dreadfully bad sonnet, a lot of rubbish, actually, (no, you do not get to say it isn't), but although it is definitely rubbish, it is rubbish in sonnet form. 

To choose our rulers we have won the right,

To stand up and be counted, one by one,

To fight against oppression with our might,

And brothers all, we did what must be done.

In modern times, the voters do not care

To vote, electoral apathy wins,

We moan and rail against our rulers’ fare

But we do not use the polls, for our sins.

I too am one of those who do not use

The polls, my right was taken from me when

I chose to live among an alien muse,

Her law being mightier than my pen.

But what’s the point, why should we vote, (for shame!)

Nothing would change, rulers are all the same.