The comfort of words

I love listening to words as well as reading them. I have always loved listening to stories, audiobooks on car and train journeys and the radio. I grew up with a mother who always had Radio 4 on in the background, as now I do, when I am cooking, cleaning, working.

Recently I have discovered the lovely podcasts by Marisa at Creative Thursday. Marisa's words have been inspiring me as I go on rainy evening walks, on sunny morning bus journeys to work, during moments at the day job where I feel I can't type out a single more word (yes, we are allowed to wear ipods at work). I love hearing the story of someone who has taken risks, jumped right in and is leading a truly creative life and is willing to share all she has learnt.

You can listen to Marisa's podcasts here at Creative Thursday.

What words are you listening to? 

The power of words

Last month I was excited to have a piece published in The Guardian's family section. It had only submitted it a week or so before and I by chance found an email in my junk folder saying it was going to be published the next day. 

I wrote it anonymously because it was a bit of a sensitive subject and I didn't want the people involved to read it. And I thought they never would. But by a weird twist of fate, my uncle happened to be with my mum when I texted here to tell her to go and buy the paper. She did, and began reading it aloud before she realised what it was about. I was mortified, and although my mum assured me my uncle wasn't, I felt so embarrassed to think he had read it. 

As I begin to write more and more this is something I wonder about. How much of the personal do you put into your writing. I know that when I write, the personal has a way of weaving itself in there. I can't shut it out, and I don't want to. But it can get me into trouble. Tonight I've been working on another piece about a friendship. Again, it is sensitive and I wouldn't want the person involved to read it. I will keep it anonymous and if it is published, it will be in a magazine I doubt she'll have even heard of. But even so, I feel slightly anxious about laying this story out on the page. 

Do you struggle with this too? What do you do with the personal stuff - leave it in or leave it out? Has writing ever got you into trouble? 

You can read my Guardian letter here.

Tonight I said no

Tonight I said no to going out for a drink

No to an evening of making small talk when I craved small silences

No to letting another evening drift by without writing

or giving myself space to think, or breathe.

Instead I said yes to a night to myself

Yes to a run along the seafront with the wind whipping away a stale day

Yes to the rough sea and the kite surfers playing with the elements

Yes to turning up my music loud and dancing

Yes to turning off the TV and thinking

Yes to an hour of writing, and feeling myself again. 

Summer threads

Summer has truly arrived. I unpacked some of my summer dresses and hung them outside to air, which led me to thinking about the stories these pieces of fabric hold. These days I don't buy too many clothes. As much as I love clothes, I try and buy second hand or buy less and make sure they last me. I like the thrill of buying something new as much as any girl, but I also love like pulling 'old' clothes out of storage too. It's like meeting up with old friends you haven't seen for a while. The green silk dress reminds me of a lovely day in Kensington, of hot summer weddings and drinking pimms barefoot on the grass, and a visit to Lucca in Tuscany last summer. The blue dress started its life off as bright pink, bought for a birthday party which didn't quite work, and niether did the colour of the dress. It lay ignored and unloved in my wardrobe until I tried dying it blue, which gave it a new lease of life. It reminds me of sweltering week at the Avignon theatre festival in the south of France, and a night of dancing, drinking and hilarity, one of those nights that cements certain friendships and that you talk about years later.

The blue bird skirt I picked up on a holiday to San Francisco a few years ago, my first time in America and probably my best holiday ever. One day I wandered off by myself to the Mission district and found this in a thrift store. I would love to know who wore it before me. Its twin sister is worn by one of my favourite bloggers too. The red dress is a vintage Marks and Spencers dress, bought as present on a rainy day in Suffolk last year at the end of the summer. Its first outing is yet to come. I wonder what memories it will hold by the end of the summer?

What are your favourite summer clothes?

Step by step

I started running with a friend  a couple of years ago. At first we couldn't stagger for more than about 10 minutes but slowly, step by step, and week by week, we got fitter. I now go running down by the sea twice a week. Like writing, it is something that I sometimes love, sometimes hate, but that I always feel better when I've done it. Like getting out your pen and paper and writing your first word, the hardest part of going for a run is putting on your trainers and getting out the door. The rest of it is almost easy. Like writing, you just go with it.

Running gives me time and space to think. Ideas come to me, things work themselves out. It is great to go for a run when you have been hunched over the keyboard and you need something physical to get you out of your head. My favourite time to go is first thing in the morning before the world has awoken. I went out yesterday morning under a blue cloudless sky.It was already getting hot. As I ran through the streets I could smell wafts of roses and jasmine in people's front gardens and hear the sounds of children getting up for breakfast. The sea was as still as a lake. 

Do you run? If you don't, you should try it. Believe me, I was never the running kind but now I love it. Or what else do you recommend to get you out of your mind and into your body?

Space and solitude

Yesterday a couple of friends and I trekked through the fields to see Anish Kapoor's C-Curve. It was beautiful: a strange object that looked like it had been left by aliens. It reflected back hyper-real images of ourselves, the fields and the cows, like a mirror into another world. Adults and children posed and giggled in front of their reflections like in a funfair hall of mirrors. Cameras clicked and flashed. Voices rang out louder in the quiet of the fields. I found myself wishing there were just a few of us there, or that I was alone, to really take in the experience, to drink in the peace and the clouds above me with no one but the cows for company.

Perhaps this is because I have been craving space and solitude recently. I have been longing for a Virginia Woolf's room of one's own. This is a luxury I, like many of you I'm sure, just can't afford right now. A private study is some years away for me. Instead I write at the kitchen table, or on my bed. Where ever I can get peace. This is hard sometimes. I am not the Jane Austen type; my ideas dry up when people and noise flows around me. I need quiet to reach down and hear those words inside me. 

I have the flat to myself this weekend and I am revelling in the peace broken only by my tapping fingers and a ticking clock, and the muted sounds of the neighbours lives. 

How do you carve out your own solitude and space to create?

To see some stunning photos of the C-curve, look here. 

Away

I am back from a fantastic few days in Cornwall. We stayed here.

I am imagining what life would be like if every day you awoke to a sea that spread as far as the eye could see. To a perfectly clean bathroom and a hot powerful shower. To a breakfast with fresh napkins, pats of butter on white plates, jugs of fresh juice. Where the day stretched ahead of you, free from the to-do lists and jobs, and that tense little knot of all the things you feel you have to do but don't have time for. When instead you walk barefoot in the sand and think about your next meal. And come home to nap on a bed that's been plumped and made for you while you've been out. What bliss!

Celebrate

I have joined in Sunday Scribblings today, where the prompt is 'Celebrate'.

Right now I am celebrating:

1. Spring - daffodils everywhere, bare arms and legs in the ever-early British rush to strip off and get into summer gear, the hordes of people walking along the seafront.

2. Finally feeling that writing is becoming part of my daily routine. I naturally slink off to the bedroom to do my 30 minutes each evening and I'm amazed at how much I can actually get done over the weeks.

3. Getting an article published in 'Writers in Education' magazine.

4. Sending off a short story I finished last week. Who gives a damn if it gets published or not, I am just so pleased I submitted something!

5. Running 40 minutes without stopping today. 10 k race in May here I come!

6. The little things - a warm cat in my lap, time to lie on the sofa in the afternoon sun and read, walking along by the sea and feeling so lucky to live where I do. 

What are you celebrating?

A writing high

I've found it hard to blog about writing recently when, erm, I haven't actually been doing much writing. This has changed in the last week or so. I've started working on something that's a completely different genre to what I usually write. I've taken myself out of my comfort zone but I'm finding it comfortable. The words are flowing.

I've been setting myself achievable targets of 20 - 30 minutes each day to work on this piece and I find that I nearly always end up writing for longer than that. Last night I had that delicious plunging-into-the-well feeling where you lose track of time and place and the words fly from your fingers. The almost magical feeling of when you read back over your work and you barely remember writing it. The words flow easily and unselfconsciously. The writer's high.

I know I won't always find it easy like this. Recently the tap has felt stiff and rusty, the words have come out in slow, painful drips. The challenge is choosing to write no matter how you feel, no matter how the words flow. But for the moment I'm going to enjoy this while it lasts. 

Lost in a book

Forgive me reader, for I have not blogged. Recently I've felt I've needed some non-screen time. Spending all day and all night in front of a computer can make you yearn for the yellowed page. So I spent yesterday curled up under a blanket, lost in a book. This used to be one of my favourite things to do; still is in fact, but funny how reading gets shoved to the bottom of the list these days. But yesterday I threw that to-do list out the window and immersed myself in another world. I was reading Anne Tyler's Digging to America, that I picked up for 99p at Oxfam.  An easy, almost comforting read full of colourful characters, families, noise -  I read it all in one sitting. 

Do you find that the more you write and the more you try to squeeze in the less you read? When was the last time you let yourself get lost in a book?

A conversation over fish and chips

Him: So when are you going to write a book?

Me: Well I've started lots. But at the moment I'm trying to concentrate on shorter things, you know, short stories, articles, so I can get published and get some work behind me. 

Him: But when are you going to write an actual book?

Me: I will one day. 

Him: I might write a book. That would be good, wouldn't it. I'll just sit down and write one.

Does anyone else ever have conversations like these?  He does it to wind me up, surely.

Three things I have loved today

1. A man who knows how to make perfect poached eggs.

2. This sweet red felt heart, handstitched by 7 year old Colette. 

3. A playful cat, rolling in the sunshine. 

Happy Valentines Day! What things have you loved today?

Settling

I went to see Revolutionary Road today. I was prepared for it to be hard hitting,  and it is, but at the same time it is powerful and honest and will make you squirm in recognition. The part that resonated with me was how important it is to have an outlet for your creativity, something you do not for the money, but because you love to do it. The film is the story of what happens when you ignore your creative passions, make excuses, and settle.

It reminded me of a piece I read in 'Women who run with the wolves' the other night:

'Excuses are another form of pollution. From women writers, painters, dancers, and other artists, I have heard every excuse concocted since the earth cooled. "Oh, I'll get round to it one of these days." In the meantime, she has the grinning depression. "I keep busy, yes I squeeze in my writing here and there, why I wrote two poems last year, yes, and finished one painting and part of another over the last eighteen months, yes, the house, the kids, the husband, the boyfriend, the cat, the toddler, need my consummate attention. I am going to get around to it, I don't have the time, I can't find the time, I can't make the time, I can't start until I have the finest most expensive instruments or experiences, I just don't feel like it right now, the mood is not right yet. I just ned at least a day's worth of time, I just need to have a few days' time to get it done,  I just need to have a few weeks of time to myself to get it done, I just, just, just..."

What excuses do you make to yourself and how do you overcome them?

P.S On a lighter note, Kate Winslet gets to wear some great 50s outfits. 

A page of snow

Overnight, the snow fell thick and silent. We were woken early by a cat miaowing at her familiar world transformed by a strange white blanket. 

I sat in the dark kitchen, sipping tea and listening to tales of closed roads and four hour journeys to work on the radio. All the trains and buses cancelled. The only taxi driver to be found was from Afghanistan, used to driving in snow drifts.

Realising I wouldn't be able to get into work I sat down at my computer to check my emails. But I was too tempted - I had to get out before the world woke up. I crept out just after 7 into a muffled white world. It was so quiet you could hear the beat of the starlings' wings as they flocked overhead. A couple of determined people waited at the bus stop for a bus that would surely never come. I tramped slowly down to the seafront, crunching virgin snow underfoot. A man was building an igloo with an ice cream carton and further down the beach, someone was skiing. A few people wandered around with dazed smiles on their faces, some taking pictures. I followed a man filming silently on his video camera.

The snow on the beach was untouched. It started to get lighter. On the way home, a girl danced in the street singing 'I don't have to go to scho-ol, I don't have to go to scho-ol.' A woman glared as she scraped snow off her car. The snow began to fall again.

I sit at my desk, watching a cat watching the whirling snowflakes.

Early morning pages

I have been doing Julia Cameron's morning pages now for a couple of months. It means I have to get up at 6.20 to fit it in between feeding the cat, spoonfuls of porridge and rushing out the door to the day job with my hair still slightly wet. I am not a morning person. But I have grown to love this twenty minutes of quiet before the world, and even the sun, wakes up. I feel as if I could write and write. It is such good practice. If you haven't already tried it, do. 

It started with a name

Did anyone else have trouble coming up with a name for their blog? Each one I chose seemed to already be taken.  Mostly by people who'd written about two posts in 2004 and nothing since.I wanted to get the rain in there somewhere. I'm not really sure why. Sometimes I love the rain - the sound of it especially, or the smell of city streets after a shower. It reminds me of my school playground in London.  Now I have chosen a name for this blog I have no excuse but to get writing.