The last few days have been a bit on the smoky side around here. We’re spending the month at our house at Little Forest which is about 30k’s south of the Wandandian fires (for any interstate or overseas readers that’s about two and a half hours south of Sydney). Here’s the usual view from our veranda and the one I was greeted with when I woke up this morning:
Although the fires are still burning they don’t seem to be getting any closer to us but we’re keeping an eye on things just in case!
In other news I’ve been struggling a little with the January Writing Challenge, putting too much pressure on yself to come up with something new and wonderful. So today I decided to try something different. When we headed to the beach instead of taking a book I took a pen and a few index cards and sat and wrote down any observations that came to me. Here’s a sample of a few things I jotted down:
on the beach of my youth
I sit and watch
past, present and future
an ocean of blue light
the fearlessness of youth
and the arrogance
a father builds a castle with his son
as I once did with my daughter
who now lies
lithe and sun-browned beside me
in an almost there bikini
I once-upon-a-time would have worn
umbrellas lollipop the sand
a seagull motors along like a wind-up toy
cicadas beat out the rhythm of the day
I gaze at the rocks we once explored together
and walk there alone
a seaweed green crab
studies me with his poppy-seed eyes
sidles beneath a barnacled rock
a flesh pink starfish
clings to its tidal home
and there she is next to me
she clambers over rocks
and goes beyond the headland
out of sight
my heart still lurching
at her vanishing
smiling at her return.
It’s rough and ready but might one day be moulded into something more substantial. The thing is that writing down those notes at the beach forced me to look closely, to sit and watch and listen. When I took myself for my jaunt around the rock pools I was in the same observant, patient frame of mind and managed to see those small details I otherwise would have missed …
So today I learnt – or rather reminded myself of – something. What we write doesn’t always have to be great, it doesn’t always have to matter. What matters is the act of writing itself. It helps you to stop and watch and listen and appreciate the world around you just that little bit more. And that can’t be a bad thing!
Hope your writing is going well.
Would love to hear what you’re writing about and your thoughts on your process.
I love that Pam. I also think that’s the value of a vacation. You allow yourself time to sit, and think and watch. We should do it more anyway but something about summer holidays frees us up.
I’ve had two great writing days…one I plotted a new book and today i’m re-writing but something clicked for me in the last day or so that hadn’t in the last month I’m not sure why, but it did.
Fantastic Monique! I love it when You have breakthroughs like that and doing the writing does actually open up new ideas. It’s keeping up the momentum I have issue with.
My backside is currently glued to my chair. Edit-rewrite-edit-rewrite-edit… But you reminded me that I really need to get outside and contemplate something else for a change.
Sounds like you’re making great progress with your novel Kerry. Good to mix it up a bit too.
Love this post, Pamela. Slowing down and having the time to meander is a gift, isn’t it? My whole life is slow these days and it’s a great boon to my writing in some ways. Since last August, I’ve been writing haiku, but in recent days, longer poems have come to me as I’ve been walking. It feels great! They seem to emerge while I’m not looking … Then I take several days to let them settle, to tweak, read out loud, get the feel and resonance of every syllable and word.
And the discipline of morning pages is a daily connection and comfort.
Just finished reading Sufficient Grace (Amy Espeseth) – extraordinary and wonderful.
I love that idea of thepoems emerging when you’re not looking Desney. I think sometimes try to hard too hard with my writing than just letting it flow. It’s a wonderful lesson.