Mad Hatter or really a writer?

I think I must be a very fickle woman. I flit about between writing and making and while I might concentrate on one at a time, I can’t quite commit fully for ever: when I’m writing, I think I can live without making and vice verse, but eventually I realize I need the other one in my life too. And I dump the one I’m doing for the other. For a bit. ‘Til next time. Fickle, see?

I dumped writing back in February. I flirted a bit with jewellery but my talents didn’t lie with metal; too small (bananas for hands) and too tough (I was a bit scared of the material’s needs (fire!)

As a maker (I have never been very comfortable with the word sculptor. I think perhaps my interest in craft - as opposed to fine art – makes me more comfortable with the notion of being a maker. Though when I did my fine art degree, craft was considered by some, the poor cousin) Anyway, as a maker, I’ve always been materials led but it can’t be any old material. It needs to be right.

As well as being fickle, I’m a courses ‘whore.’ I do LOVE to learn. And after several summers taking Arvon courses (writing) this summer I chose millinery. Long term readers will know that I’ve dabbled in making headwear, though god knows after this summer, I’m a bit embarrassed about them. Still, there’s a learning curve to everything, eh?

Here then, modelled by Daughter, are the two pieces I made during an AWESOME three day workshop with the enormously talented Bridget Bailey, of Bailey Tomlin. See, I’m never writing again; it’s making (hats) all the way from now on…

Abandoning writing for jewellery

I’d been harbouring the details of the jewellery school for quite some time but it took the crisis I outlined yesterday, and the total despair I was feeling about my writing, before I plucked up the courage to email the contact. Now, five or so weeks in, I can’t imagine what all the fuss was about.

None of the anxiety was about the jewellery making; rather finding the place. And would I like it? Would there be any other students? Would I be able to make the things I wanted? Would it solve my creative crisis?

It didn’t ever occur to me that I might find it difficult. If that sounds arrogant I do apologise. What I mean is that since I have a fine art degree, tucked away at the back of my brain I thought ‘how hard can it be? It’s simply a different material…’ During my degree we were expected to turn our hands to whatever material the project needed. (For my degree show I learned some advanced ceramics: to make my own mould, to make the negative, then the positive and to slip cast from the mould but I know none of the processes that might lead up to that!) I am then, something of a dilettante. Oh dear. Still, I thought ‘how hard can it be?’

The answer to that, dear reader, is BLOODY HARD. Not only is metal really, really tough but also everything you make for jewellery is TINY. And not only do I NOT have biceps on my fingers but also my hands, it turns out, are like bunches of fat bananas. And that isn’t even getting involved in the delights of the old lady eyesight I’m developing. There are really scary processes like soldering which involves flames and gas and heating things that you’ve spent hours cutting (badly) and filing (to put your mistakes right) and you might melt them if you do it wrong. And that's not to mentioning the potential to set the studio alight. 

So the second lesson I went to I took a cup of tea in a flask for the stress and big bag of humility. And things got a bit better. I stopped breaking the saw blades quite so frequently but I was still scared of soldering or forgetting that I could only fish things out of the acid with the copper pincers.

Now, several weeks on I have begun to learn (some respect.) I can solder with more confidence without Khun Gim standing next to me. (Update to say: apart from today when I kept losing bits of solder. I couldn’t seem to coordinate my two hands to hold the fire in one and rescue the microscopic piece of solder with the other!) I break fewer saw blades when I am calm and if I am careful to cut things neatly, they require less tidying up. Attention to detail is really important. Slap dash doesn’t do. (Slap dash is part of my personality. *Sigh*)

Here’s what I’ve made so far (including the dodgy stuff.)

You can find out more about One Form One Piece Jewellery School here and check out some pictures on Facebook here.

Sunday confession

Back in January I made the decision to stop writing. I gave up; retired. It was a relief. Writing (or failing to get my novel what I wanted it to be) had begun to make me really unhappy.

I thought about why I’d begun writing a novel in the first place. It was something I’d always wanted to do but like so many people, I only talked and thought about doing it. Then one day, I stumbled across a blog that invited anyone writing a novel to join a race for support and camaraderie. It wasn’t easy but it made me happier than unhappy.

I have a not-so-secret confession which people rarely believe - I don’t have any burning desire to publish. I wanted to write the best book I could just for the sake of it. There’s something about the process of writing (and making art or craft, come to that) that does it for me. And having to turn my creation out for anyone’s scrutiny (publication or exhibition) brings me out in hives.

And so I did write a novel: 107,000 words of story, a beginning, a middle and an end. Most people spend their lives saying they want to and never do it. I did it and I should be proud of that.

Over the five years that I’ve been writing I’ve had breaks from it; periods of laziness or frustration and even though I’ve longed to give up, I haven’t been able to stop; not completely anyway. There has always been something inside that I identified as a need to write. However miserable it made me I had to continue to do it.

Two months ago, for the first time in four or five years, I felt as though I had a choice. I don’t know what had changed, except perhaps that the unhappiness outweighed the pleasure and I felt as though I’d been released from something and that I could stop writing. It was liberating. There was some grief too but mostly there was relief.

I began to attend jewellery-making classes instead. I feel that making uses a totally different part of my brain from writing (although maybe it doesn’t or shouldn’t) but when I draw or make I go to a place where nothing intrudes. I struggled to find that place in writing… I’m going to come back and tell you about the jewellery course tomorrow but here’s the funny thing:

I have begun to think about my next writing project.

Where I've been...

Sorry for my absence; but perhaps you hadn’t noticed I’d gone.

For the past two weeks The House has resembled Santa’s workshop.

I came back from Kuala Lumpur raring to meet my deadline on Polite Lies, my never-ending novel, instead I found my time wasn’t my own. Father Christmas had outsourced some of his work… to me.

That’s not true. I volunteered. (Why? Why do I do these things? I’ve told Husband I won’t do it again. He laughed and said it defined me… I’m not sure I like that.)

So three weeks work was over and done with a two-hour lunch.


Uh oh. This seemed like a good idea at the time:

I've made a start...

A veritable forest:

And it's all over...

Here's a warning for you...

Oh I’ve been jumping up and down and squealing at the new followers. Thank you; thank you Rach for your Platform-Building Crusade. Actually I have to be honest I don’t like reciprocal following for the sake of increasing numbers but what I do like about this is that we’re all writers, right? So that’s not just for the sake of it…

Another confession I have to make to my new followers is about tea stains.  If I’m talking about writing it’s often a sign I’m not writing… obviously, to someone who wants to finish her book, this is A Bad Thing.

I’m trying to change the Bad Thing into Good Thing. Good Thing is writing; or editing. So I’ve implemented a new habit: I’m ending each post with an edit status.  Public humiliation tactic: progress (or otherwise) on my edit: page xx. This is working well in that I’m embarrassed to have to say I’ve done very little editing since yesterday. It’s good that I’m embarrassed but that’s not really enough. I need to move the embarrassment and inaction towards pride and action because I’ve made progress. I am determined that pitiful progress won’t happen again tomorrow. Watch this space.

So, when I’m not talking about writing because I am writing (Good Thing) I quite often post about my life as a British woman in Thailand or my family or something I see on the street, or somewhere I go. This might mean my blog is somewhat eclectic but that’s just the way it goes. Anyway, now you know.

Public humiliation tactic: progress (or otherwise) on my edit: page 39 

Pinch and a punch...

After about four weeks of not writing my novel – you can find out why here and here - it’s time to get back to it. I know I’m ready to start writing again because I’ve been really bad tempered! (I think I owe it to my family to get back on it.)

On Friday I talked to someone about my book and got excited again and on my way home I talked to two friends in the taxi about moving forward. I heard myself diagnosing the solution at the same moment as I told them about the problem: it’s time to engage brain and stop relying (so much) on my subconscious and instinct. So far, I’ve been making it up as I go along and now that it’s got complicated, it’s time to plan…

Yesterday it was just Son and I for Sunday lunch at the pub. Afterwards we decided to go off to MBK where I would write or plan (in Starbucks) and he would go and look for the DVD of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas for me and then potter around doing his own thing (Guitar Hero in the arcade!)

Result: I wrote, scribbled and planned.

On our way home we popped into Villa for some shopping, where we spotted packets of rarely seen in Thailand, Walkers Salt and Vinegar crisps. Even as I write, I am salivating.

They should have been on yesterday's list of things I love!

Slumps

I’ve been reminded that this is a writing blog.

It used to be much more about writing but that was in the days when mostly I was blogging about not writing. Or the posts would be about how I’d working out what the problem was and now I was on track again.

A couple of days later, I’d be posting about not writing again.

So mostly, it’s accurate to say that I when I talk here about writing … I’m not… writing, that is.

I haven’t been writing recently. There seems to be so much else to do but I recognise that I’m not using my time efficiently. I could do it all; I could certainly do more. So what is it?

There’s often talk about the 30,000 word slump or the 70,000 word slump and I’ve never been able to join in because I didn’t know (other than the No Word Slump, about which I can expound for weeks) which was my personal slump.

Anyway, I’ve got it: I think it’s the 50,000 word slump.

I’ve managed so far to weave in my various story lines between all the characters and now I’ve got all these balls in the air and I haven’t the remotest idea how to manage their coming back down to earth. And that’s what I’ve got to do… They can’t all arrive at catching height at the very same second because I’ve only got two hands and after all I have to hold out on the reader. Some of the issues have to be resolved later than others but all the subplots are tied up within the central story…

…so how to do it?

*Sigh*

My new mantra

The last week – ten days has been a disaster writing wise. No time to do anything. Today I’ve got to take the artwork for the banners to MBK where they will … do something with their software to make them into banners and print them for us. Then I’ve got other errands to run. Tomorrow the children need picking up and dropping off and totally different time of day in different parts of Bangkok. I want to go to the Thaicraft fair in the middle of the day; Husband and Daughter have piano lessons in the afternoon and then on Sunday Husband’s off to India. It’s so busy.

I’ve really got out of the habit of 100 words a day, and need a big boot shoving up my backside. The part that I’m working on has turned into a ‘I simply can’t work this out’ kind of project so rather than open it, harrumph, close it again I have to take it a sentence at a time. I can do that: one sentence at a time.

I have earmarked next week to write (apart from Thursday). I have two weeks before my writing course on Koh Chang and I’m feeling an amateur, fraudulent and devoid of imagination; but also quite a bit excited.

One sentence at a time is my new mantra…

Deadline

I’m forever finding ways to procrastinate. Sometimes they’re genuine and other times … well they’re not. Yesterday I had the whole day to write and there was no artwork due, nothing else I had to do. I looked at my screen most of the day, fiddling. I toyed with tidying my desk to accommodate my new scanner. I need to replace my contact lenses; need my hair cut, but I haven’t got time, I’ve got to write. I am not writing. I finished Julia Bell’s Dirty Work (loved it); watched a bit of crappy TV, and then out of sheer boredom I began to think about writing.

This story just will not go away. My not writing would be so easy if the story just slipped out of my head, but it’s demanding to be written, and it’s nagging away at me. I can’t get away from it. It’s clamouring at me like a child with verbal diarrhoea. Every now and again I realise – often out of desperation to stop the din in my head – if I just wrote it, it might leave me alone.

I was due out at the Bangkok Women’s Writers Group last night, but with nothing to share, what is the point? I’m not a writer if I’m not writing. I went out anyway, to sit in Starbucks with my planning folder. I bought some coloured index cards, in the stationery shop, and this is the bag they gave me. (What does it mean – apart from someone needs some grammar lessons? Was it a message for me?)

I gave each of the four sub/plots a different colour card and I began to scribble on them, ideas for all the conflicts, scenes, dialogue, with all the characters. Today I am taking my bag of index cards, my planning folder, my folder with the 25,000 words that need rewriting, all my notes etc. I am going to get my contact lenses organised and then I’m going to spend the day out in coffee shops to write all ideas on index cards. Then I will assemble them into some sort of order and start writing.

I am seeing my UK trip as a sort of deadline: a get writing deadline or quit this pretending to write thing.

JFDI

I am obsessing about how to do this writing a novel thing and not doing it.

I MUST STOP OBSESSING.
I MUST STOP OBSESSING.
I MUST WRITE AND NOT OBSESS.
I MUST START WRITING MY NOVEL.

I am s t i l l rewriting my article.

SueG, a new visitor stopped by my blog and gave me the benefit of her experience ‘Just do it’. This is much nicer than Husband who uses an acronym to demand that I: JFDI.

I read an interview with AL Kennedy which echoes all other writers who are e v e r asked ‘what advice would you give to aspiring writers.’ The answer is always the same ‘WRITE.’

So that’s what I have to do.

Write, right?

I’ve been blaming the fashion show for not being able to write. Then it was the day after the fashion show, and I was tired (pathetic excuse). On Monday I got lured away from the desk by an invitation to lunch. Today’s excuse was a Year 9 Options meeting for parents at Son’s school.

Writers write. I know this.

They write – they sit down to write even when they don’t feel like it.

So stop making excuses, stop reading The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, go and write.

I just needed to tell myself that.

WRITE.

Blah

Why am I here blogging when I've got nothing to say?

I'm sure that can't be right: nothing to say?

Nope, nothing.

I should be writing ...

I've got two children to get ready for residentials next week and myself to get ready to be an eco-tourist.

I'm still really sad I can't be an eco warrior and have dreadlocks.