WAITING TILL WORDS

NEW YEAR'S RESOLU...OH, TO HECK WITH ALL THAT!

I struggle at this time of the year. Not so much with the shiny, squeaky new beginnings. More with maintaining a regular regime built on those rose-coloured fresh-out-of-the-box intentions. 

At the start of a new year, my heart rebels against the traditions of diary keeping, resolution making, to-do list mania. By just about now, I miss a day, or several days, a week, and suddenly, the perfectionist in me feels it's getting left behind on the starting blocks! Then the problem’s doubled with every passing day. The more I feel I’ve missed or dropped the ball while playing 'keepy-uppy', the more overwhelming it seems to get 'back on track'. Crazy but true! I should resolve to do better this year, but there I go again. It’s those darned resolutions that seem to press the pause button on forward motion!

It can apply to all sorts. Diary entries. Blogging. Arbitrary targets. The more goals I set, the less I feel inspired. I'm one of those who thrives on wiggle room. Not least in writing. What about you? I find the ideas that get me buzzing come unbidden in the dead of the night, or after an hour in the silence, off piste, off the map, off the timetable. 

Socrates, now. He didn't think much of writing. (Sorry, Soxy boy, I know that's an outrageous oversimplification!) He never wrote down his thoughts. It took his pupil Plato, among others, to commit his master’s words to paper and hand them down to future generations. Socrates said (or was it Plato putting words in his mouth?) that writing things down leads to forgetfulness. For me, regimented writing, the diaries and the spreadsheets, just because night's turned to day or there's an r in the month, kills my vibe. Once pressure is off, I can gladly and gratefully scribble away at any hour of day or night. 

Not writing things down? No. Never going to happen. How do inspirations get processed and passed along if you don't record them somehow? Even when you have a Plato to your Socrates, you’re dependent on the one who curates your content and on what they think you said. Socrates had his Plato, so we know him principally that way, by pupil proxy. But at best, it's going to be lost in translation, whispered from lip to ear round the circle in a Victorian parlour game, emerging as something barely resembling the original.

Unlike Socrates, I can’t imagine not writing. It’s my preferred way of relaxing, of challenging myself, of finding out what I actually think or feel or intuit and then sharing it, connecting with others. I have no plans to stop, even if I could! 

I enjoyed every second of writing my first novel, editing it, typesetting it, getting it out there, blogging about its background and genesis. I enjoy sharing it. I enjoy the feedback. I love that people enjoy it, or get frustrated at or enchanted by one of the characters.

I'm enjoying planning my second book, the writing, the letting it all coalesce and mature. Then come the expectations. As soon as you realise other people are hanging on the hope of a sequel, the pressure is on, like the unwritten diary page or the missed appointment. We need to hang on mindfully to the truth that every word we write is first for ourselves, then for others if they happen to choose to read it. We really need to stop concerning ourselves, as writers, as humans, with what others think, or demand or expect. 

Just breathe, one breath, then the next breath and the one after that.  One step, then the next, one foot in front of the other. One word, then another, then the one after that. For the sheer joy of it, always.

Sometimes, we feel the pressure to match or compare one piece of writing with the next. Maybe we need to let go of wanting the present moment's project to rival anything, but just to let what we produce become exactly what it needs to be, precious in its own right. Able to be graciously marinaded in the edit or fed without regrets into the shredder.

As I coax my characters through their story arcs, piecing together their universe, it’s as if I don’t want to let them down. The same with each poem. I want them to be everything I desire for them, like children. Yet, like children, I know I just have to bring them into the world, love them, nurture them and let them go, toddling out into print so they can be friends with people who haven't even met them yet. 

A  daily straitjacket, especially now my energy levels are so variable in chronic illness, sometimes trips me up or freezes me out from the fires of spontaneity . This year is going to be different! (Was that a pesky new year resolution, sneaking in, there?) It’s down to me, calmly staying present, being very gentle and kind to myself. Are you planning to give yourself the same TLC this year? Be your own best encourager. Your own cheerleader. Go on, why not? Don't be so hard on yourself. Failure isn’t an option. Precisely because nothing is failure, unless you label it so. This year, dear one, don't punish yourself. Rip up the calendar if you need to. Just never let your fire go out!

EMILY BRONTË'S ON MY DOORSTEP

Emily Brontë’s on my doorstep.

Under her hem I can see her feet.

She has no shoes on.

I know she will have avoided

Stepping in toadstools, hedgehog

Excreta, worm casts,

Flattened her soles into moss,

Cold clover, mist of dew,

Maybe thorns.

I remember referring to my upland home

As wuthering. Has she come

To snort derision?

She sifts through my heart,

Eyes a forgotten colour, all reproach,

Lofty, lyric,

A shadow on the shelf,

She enters, dissolving in dimity,

Ferocious flare from heath to hearth.

Tapping keys, watching words cascade

I feel her at my back,

Refusing to relent, melt, yield, unbend.

Writer's Block Buster: 'Play-date' with my heroine brings fresh insights and inspiration

You know the classic cartoon meme of the hapless character who runs off the cliff, but only falls when he looks down, causing suspended gravity to kick in, splattering him on the canyon floor?

Do you ever get to a point in your first draft when, like that character, you're running along at breakneck speed, creating your fiction with blissful abandon? Then, two thirds of the way through, as the plot becomes ever more clear to you, you grind to a halt, over-analyzing and second guessing yourself ? You itch to edit edit edit, change course, look down, and suddenly you're stymied and blocked, lying splattered with bruised wings on the canyon floor?

That's what happened to me last week while scooting gleefully through the first draft of my second novel "Kittiwake and Cloudhover." My feisty heroine Thirza and my wildlife whispering hero Bram from "Goatsucker Harvest" find themselves hurtling towards the dizzying cliffs of Flamborough on the Holderness Coast, summer 1856. Suddenly, I found myself temporarily stuck in the wet sand, caught in a bind between my writing and editing brains.

So, I was inspired to try to find my own solution. Maybe you'll find this approach helpful, too. Maybe you have your own self-restart buttons to press? I'd love to hear about them!

I let myself skip off for a quick off-piste "play date" with my heroine, letting Thirza tell me, in her own inimitable voice, how she saw the plot, the other characters, from start to finish.

It gave my querulous inner critic the night off. 8000 words later, I had some useful fresh plot twists, insights and inspiration. I'd also been able to "kill" some of my floppier "darlings" plus some of Thirza's turns of phrase cried out for inclusion in future drafts.

So, with a clearer road map, a renewed purpose, rested and refreshed, it's a joy to put my hands back on the tiller and steer for the end of the first draft again.

I'm excited for the day in the future when I can share more of these crazy, cliffhanging emotional adventures with you!

Thanks for reading and for all your support, amazing reviews, laughs, and for sharing my writing journey!

One percent inspiration: what makes your writing tick?

Whether you write for pleasure, for a living, for the hell of it, because you can't help it, we all know inspiration's an elusive butterfly that can be hard to harness.

It doesn't take a genius to know what Thomas Alva Edison said is true: "Genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration."

But in between the sweat and buckling down to write in order to write, each of us snatches at precious personal muses that help to place us in the moment, with our words, our characters, our plotlines, our message, our soul-sharing.

When I felt a bit blocked with my second novel this week, I woke one morning from a dream encounter with my central characters. They reminded me not to be timid and self-editing while the first draft is humming along. Feel the fear and tap away regardless! Characters that are real flesh and blood to me, closer than family, will reassure or challenge me by living the next twist in the tale with me.

Yorkshire bard Ted Hughes's poem "The Thought Fox" explains the way inspiration came to him as a writer. You can hear the poet reading his poem here. 

Set on the Yorkshire Coast like my novel, below is my own latest poem trying to capture how one flash of inspiration for my work in progress came to me in the waking watches of the morning. 

Chatterthrow

They sailed through me in dream last night

My hero and my heroine,

His eyes reflect rainbows over marsh

Her scent of quay and salted sheets

Watched my hovering hand over blank page

Traced their fingers through knots of plot,

Unpicking and beachcombing unwritten words

Lips smiling at unmet characters

Over us, gulls of Chatterthrow

Wheeling and skimming the coffee cliffs,

Kittiwake held against her breast

As he whispers his breath under trembling wings

His palm facing the centred earth,

Her palm raised to the sky and spray,

My hand cradled between their warmth

Telling their story in woven waves

Guiding my grasp to the tiller of tales

Under the hush and howl of the fret

Cogs connect and the synapse sparks

Compass and craft over bar and block

(c) Joyce Barrass 2015

You can get my first novel, set on the peat moors and canals of South Yorkshire, "Goatsucker Harvest" here (some of the reviews may persuade you to dive in - it's FREE on Kindle Unlimited & crazy cheap on Kindle or in Paperback in UK & USA & some other parts of the planet.)

They say the dead tell no tales...

Two of the hundreds of names on gravestones in Wentworth's old churchyard, near Rotherham, South Yorkshire

Visited gorgeous Wentworth village in South Yorkshire to see the Old Church with its medieval tower, 16th century memorial statues, 1684 rebuild by the 2nd Earl of Strafford & its damp & gloomy subterranean burial crypt of the Fitzwilliams built c1824. 

I was amused to see two tombstones nearby, one bearing the name of my heroine in "Goatsucker Harvest", 'Thirza', the other the surname of my villain, (Darnell) 'Salkeld'. Not surprising really, as all my characters bear local Yorkshire names taken directly from my own family tree. What was touching is that the names on these graves were pointed out to me by two people who are enthusiastic readers of my novel! 

Flamborough graveyard also holds links to my next story; and they say the dead tell no tales... 

Flag waving - confessions of an imaginative only child!

A lovely friend of mine brought this to my attention through Facebook today.

I've led worship in the past where children and young folks have danced like this with flags or even long strips of silky material to express their joy and praise and love of God in a different way. Expressing that thankfulness in a way that's filled with playfulness, colour, motion, texture and pattern. It needs no formal words. It takes no learning. The dancer just listens to their heart, moves and gives their whole self to God in the moment.

I was pleased to see people are still having fun, a laugh, a ball, expressing themselves in this simple way across all cultures, like whirling Dervishes, caught up in the moment, scribbling and painting in air with their own bodies, extended through the flags.

Whirling Dervishes

It also made me remember with a twinge of longing something I've not done since I was a little child.

When I was little, I used to love what my parents' used to call my "flag waving". I didn't learn it. It came from nowhere but my fertile imagination, love of storytelling, making up songs and worlds of my own. An only child, low maintenance as many Ennea 9-type introverts often are, I'd disappear into the fields that ran from our back garden to the railway line where my dad worked as a shunter. Every summer evening I'd be there, or up in my bedroom when the nights drew in again in autumn. Flag-waving.

It wasn't anything I could really describe to anybody else. It came as naturally to me as the synaesthesia that made burning leaves "taste" like caramel to my senses, or petrol "taste" like apricot when neither had been anywhere near my lips! I was an "imaginative" child, back in those days when we made our own entertainment (and I confess I preferred it that way most of the time!). Happy in my own company. Never bored.

This 'flag-waving' went on for years, before adulthood made it seem a bit embarrassing and best left in the nursery. I'd choose and strip the lower leaves from a slim stalk of rose-bay willow herb (known as fireweed, or, on railway properties like my home in a little valley in South Yorkshire, "railway weed") leaving only a few waggly leaves at the top to nod and twirl.

Then I would watch it, shaking and twirling it in front of me while I told stories, or made up elaborate narratives with imaginary places, people, animals all with wonderful names that tripped off my tongue. I'd make up songs and rhymes and nonsense that made my heart soar with wonder as I felt completely at one with the earth and my Maker. In that state of peace and exhilaration, you could really notice things.

The "flag" didn't have to be willow herb. It could be anything that shook and flowed and painted patterns and shapes at the end of a stalk or stick. It could become a dragon's tail, a flowing head of hair on the characters in my story, a horse's tail - anything! I had an old silk head scarf given as a present one Christmas. I fed the thin end of this scarf  through a slot in a toy golf stick with the mallet end removed, painted black, from some childhood game. Then I could hold the wand of the stick and make the scarf wave as I wove my wonders in words that became my passion as I grew older and could fashion them onto paper in some form. I kept that flag till the scarf part was worn and tattered.

Over the course of my childhood, I used stems of common wild plants, fallen twigs, old chiffon remnants, grasses, sparklers - you name it. I loved every minute. Some of my best ideas and plots were dreamed up that way with a "flag" in my hand in some private space where nobody would laugh or watch!

My "flags" were nowhere near as huge as these ones used in the video. Or in any pictures of "flag dancing" I can find on the net! I wasn't copying anybody else I'd ever seen. My movements weren't as expansive. My "flags" were often nothing more than switches of greenery or diaphanous swatches of scrap fabrics. The flag stayed in front of me, and my eyes never left it as I whispered the stories and words the sight inspired me to create. Every moment was joy, all stress relieved.

I miss the "flag-waving" hours of my youth! I've always been a private dancer. At the moment my health makes it so much harder to stand rapt for ages or dance even with nobody watching. But in my heart I thank God for making us each unique, for His lack of concern with formality and ritual. The freedom He inspires to whirl us up into private heavens, bringing joy to His heart, I pray, as He surely brings joy into mine!

Rose Bay Willow Herb or "Railway Weed" - my number one "flag" of choice as a child!