distil // thoughts on writing

I’ve been enjoying the writing of Shoko Wanger recently (of ‘Sho & Tell’ blog). She writes a beautiful narrative essay series* called 'POV' where she reflects on memory and being in the moment and ‘learning to embrace a quarter-life crisis’ (among other things). Her essays remind me (and reinforce my conviction) that writing that draws on real life, on personal experience, isn't something irrelevant or self-indulgent when it's done well: instead, looking honestly (and with curiosity) at your own life and then offering up what you notice to others... it’s actually extremely valuable work.

‘It’s not often,’ I wrote in my journal back in December when I first stumbled upon her blog, ‘that you read another’s words and think: “well, yes – that’s exactly it! Thank-you.” That, as I see it, is the purpose of writing. (Or at least a purpose.) The purpose of writing truthfully. To leave space for (and trust in) the possibility that your words, observations, life might do the same for another.’

♥

I was thinking a bit about that idea again after my brother, Evan**, shared the poem Nothing is Lost by Noël Coward with me. In the poem, Coward writes that nothing is ever forgotten: not really. Everything that’s ever happened to us (‘sorrows and losses time has since consoled,/Family jokes, out-moded anecdotes/Each sentimental souvenir and token...’) is all still floating about in our subconscious somewhere, ‘waiting to be recalled...’

It’s an interesting thought. And I am always kind of bawled over when someone says something, or I overhear something, or I taste something that sparks a memory. When I remember something I forgot I knew.

That’s kind of what he’s talking about. Nothing is lost. But what the poem makes me think of is the idea that nothing is ever wasted either. Blunders, mistakes, blips – embarrassing moments where you muddled your sentences, those hours where you got lost in the dark in the city in the rain – nothing, really, is wasted. Or it doesn’t need to be at least. 

There are many many aspects of ‘being a writer’ that could, potentially, drive one insane: the clock ticking, the solitude, the blank-page-blank-head problem, the question: ‘how’s the writing going?’, the pain – actual physical muscle-tightening pain – that comes every day from trying to pull ideas out of your head and down into words: like you’re trying to lasso the moon out the sky and pull it through a keyhole. But one aspect of writing that probably keeps me sane is that voice that says, in the middle of real life difficulties: 

'Don’t worry. You can make something out of this. If nothing else, you can write about this later.' 

♥

NB. I’m not talking about over-sharing via paper, or thinly disguising real life gripes as fiction. Absolutely not. There’s nothing more uncomfortable than reading writing like that. I’ve read too many stories recently where the main ‘character’ is clearly just the writer with wig on.

What I mean is... I think I’m learning that the trick to writing well – or really: the trick to being an empathic person, because maybe that’s actually what I’m talking about, and that’s what kind of writer I want to be – is being able to look at your own experience and find a way to distil it down till you’re not necessarily talking about particulars anymore (THIS happened THEN over THERE). Good writing, I think, is when you’re able to capture the essence of experiences (the colour and texture and sound of them) and turn them into words that ring true.

NB.2. I’m also not saying I’m very good doing that – at distilling experience. But it’s something I’d like to learn how to do because I see it in the writers I like and in the people I admire most: the people who are open and authentic and honest without being attention-seekers or needy.   

I also like the idea of a writer’s brain being an ‘experience distillery’. (If any illustrators read this blog, please draw that idea for me.)

♥

Notes

*Here are three essays from Sho & Tell you might like: 'Triumphs', 'Busy', and  'Roads'.

**Evan, incidentally, has also just started a blog: 'Coffee with Philosophers' and he's a pretty good writer so you should read it. 

The pictures in this post are by: Fumi Koike. 

(Also, ps. Thank you for your feedback on my last post. And apologies if this one seems a bit waffley ...I also realise it’s another ‘here are some thoughts after reading a poem’ piece. I will try and mix it up a little for next time!)

Dear July, one: a moth's wing.

I opened my eyes this morning to sunlight, feeling quite quietly happy. Happiness is a difficult kind of emotion (or ‘state’) because it is not – I’m noticing – the absence of fear. It’s clear-water-flowing kind of lovely. But it’s also fear-inspiring. It is fragile and translucent and if you hold it up to the light, you can often see through it. (I have the image here of one of the contestants on The Great British Bake Off holding up a square of dough she’s just been kneading, telling the camera-man, ‘If you can see through it, like little stained glass windows, then that’s how you know it’s ready’ – light shining through, but little holes already starting to form on the surface).

The question this morning then is: how to live with that? How to allow oneself to be happy – to feel the warmth of it, light of it, soft feathery touch of it – while living with this ‘fear’ (or knowledge) of its fleetingness. The temptation is to cling on tightly, to grasp.

Over the past six or seven months, I’ve been living with the phrase: ‘Hold all things with an open hand’. It came quite clearly into my head one day in the dark of winter and in the months that have followed I keep returning to it, trying to figure out what it means and whether it’s something that’s worth paying attention to. 

Last night, I was thinking about something my my Gran said a few evenings ago when she was over. She was talking about a moth my little cousins befriended in the garden last Friday when she was watching them after school. ‘Ollie the moth,’ she said, laughing. ‘That’s what they called him.’ They’d both been kneeling on the grass next to it, whispering encouraging things, trying to get the moth to climb onto their finger by pushing it with a leaf. When she realised what they were doing, she called out, ‘Oh, just be careful, girls. If you touch a moth’s wings you might damage them and it won’t be able to fly anymore. Maybe just let him alone.’

(Side-note: I remember her telling me this piece of moth-wisdom when I was little. Although, I can’t quite imagine in what context. My cousins seem much braver than me when I was their age as you’d have been far more likely to find me running away from the moth than christening it and coaxing it closer. From the ages of about seven to eleven, I used to go to bed every night praying: ‘Dear God – please don’t let any insects come into my room tonight.’ 

When, screaming, I discovered a spider lurking on the ceiling one night, and then a bluebottle a few nights later, I realised that my prayers were clearly too vague and God needed much clearer instructions if He was going to help me out. Thus began the ever-expanding List of Undesirables that I’d recite nightly to make sure He was crystal clear about what I meant. ‘No wasps, God. No flies, no spiders, no earwigs, no woodlice, no beetles, no worms, no ants, no caterpillars...’ I’m pretty sure moths were somewhere on that list).

Anyway – I was thinking about what she said again last night. ‘If you touch a moth’s wings, you’ll damage them...’ I think that might be what happiness is like: Happiness is a moth’s wing. It’s beautiful and strong. It allows for flight. But it’s also extremely delicate. So: notice it. Enjoy it. Sit with it. But be gentle with it. (A difficult thing to do). Let it come to you, but hold it with an open hand. 

Be gentle.

♥ 

Partly inspired by Emily Diana Ruth’s video series ‘Letters to July’, I’ve set myself a challenge to write something on here every day this month in an effort to be more attentive. (I'm also in the middle of a PhD, so most of the posts will be much shorter than today's...) 

As well as writing every day, I’m also going to read a poem each morning this month. Today’s one was: Full Moon by Alice Oswald.

some things I'd rather be doing right now

I’d like to have a wheely-chair race round this building

I’d like to try on five blue dresses and twirl a few times
I’d like to play music very loud and dance in the kitchen
I’d like to jump on a trampoline (without injuring myself in the process).

I’d like to sit in Kibble Palace and eavesdrop other voices 

I’d like to sift through old postcards and imagine who they’re from
I’d like to write long, long letters without stumbling over syntax
I’d like to draw little pictures and colour them in.

I’d like to get on an airplane for that feeling of almost-being somewhere
Holding my breath as it starts to go down.

I’d like to paint on a banner all the words that I’m liking
Punctuate. Whisper. Consortium. Tulip.
I’d like to eat summer strawberries or bonbons or peaches
I’d like to click open coke cans – but just for the sound.

I’d like, if I could, to get a big feather duster and
break up this cloud lurking, dull, by my head:
              it's 
              turning the shade of my skin 

              grey, and the curve       of my lip     

                 grey, 

                  and the tone of my voice 

             grey,           and my greeny-brown eyes 

                       grey.

But –

I’d better get back to work.

♥

(Ps. I'm looking forward to the Spring. Pps. This isn’t really meant to be a poem. It’s more of a structured list written when I should be doing other things. Ppps. Kibble Palace, if you don't know, is the beautiful lacy glasshouse in Glasgow's Botanic Gardens, pictured: here.

And also: Sorry for the silence on here. I’ll return when the workload allows...

Picture by the very talented: Julianna Swaney. Her pictures always fill me with light.) 

a gold dust glow (on possibility).

So, you might've noticed that I’ve changed things about a little (design-wise) on the blog. A small tour: look up! I now have links at the top of the page. Look to your right: there are little social media buttons which you can click on. Scroll back to the top: the messy looking fake-shadow header is gone! I think it looks a bit more like a proper blog now. (What do you think?)

On the subject of change, here’s something I’ve noticed recently: it is possible. Change, I mean. Change is possible. Here’s how I know it: 

I used to hate ginger* and now I don’t.

After years of feeling queasy at the thought, I’ve started enjoying ginger beer... and Three Ginger Tea has risen up the ranks to become my favourite herbal tea (as I described it recently in a letter: ‘it’s very warming and leaves a tingle like gold dust at the back of your throat’).

Other things I used to hate and now don’t include: mushrooms, uncooked tomatoes, coriander, and red onions**. I now love all of these things (deeply. In a moment of unchecked sincerity, I recently told my brother: ‘I’m really passionate about mushrooms’. He laughed quite a lot. I suppose it was sort of an odd thing to say in retrospect). These changes are encouraging. They give me hope.

If my taste-buds can change their opinions on coriander – moving from a place of disgust (‘it tastes like sick’) to one of near-fervour (‘we must have it with EVERYTHING’***) – then maybe other parts of me can change. 

Like: my inability to hear alarms in the morning or the way my first instinct is usually to hide from/pretend not to notice people I’ve been hoping to speak to when I see them on the street (o! shyness, you wily fiend). Things like: my phobia of insects, or the issues I have finding shoes that fit, or the way I fall in love with impossible notions, or my habit of leaving things to the last minute. Maybe. We’ll see...

(NB. My feelings towards marmite will never change. Gross black salty concoction.)

(Pictures snapped on my iPhone. Notes:

*I’m talking about ginger, as in ginger-the-foodstuff, not ‘carbonated drinks’ or ‘individuals with red hair and freckles’.

**I still don’t really like raw red onions, but this has more to do with the way they linger powerfully on the breath post-eating than their actual flavour.

***Everything especially includes: chilli con carne, fajitas, and chicken and mushroom curry.)

wild dreams of achievement

‘...it occurs to me that there is a proper balance between not asking enough of oneself and asking or expecting too much. It may be that I set my sights too high and so repeatedly end a day in depression. Not easy to find the balance, for if one does not have wild dreams of achievement, there is no spur even to get the dishes washed. One must think like a hero to behave like a merely decent human being.’

~ from May Sarton’s ‘Journal of a Solitude’ (1973)

♥

I came across this passage this afternoon and oh yes, I know what she’s talking about.  

I’ve started studying again, this time as a postgraduate student (I’m doing* a Creative Writing Master of Research: quite exciting). I’ll need to learn how to make realistic writing plans over the next few months. I tend to be ridiculously ambitious and then beat myself up later for not achieving the impossible.

*Note: ‘“doing” a Creative Writing Master of Research’ sounds a bit clumsy, but I thought “undertaking” made it sound a bit grandiose. Ah, language: it's a tricky thing. And here I am, trying to dance with it.

(Picture taken one hot summer night this July.)

like, like, like

Too too true. (Picture from Marc John's blog ). I despair at my own overuse of this irritating word (the linguistic equivalent of a bluebottle). I'm not quite sure how to stop saying it so much, though. It just slips out, without permission, making everything I say sound quite tentative and teenager-y. 

(On a similar note, watch: this.)

yellow.

One morning a little while ago, I was reading in the lounge – listening vaguely to the rhythm of rain pattering against the windows – when I happened to glance up and see an anoraked man walking past our house. His anorak was red, with a luminous yellow reflective hood. It would've been difficult to miss him.

As he ambled along the street, my eyes followed him lazily, and I found myself wondering what owning such a loud, retro-reflective jacket might say about him "as a person". Someone did say once that "the clothes make the man”.

The hood definitely shouted: 'this gentleman is safety conscious'! More concerned with not-being-knocked-down, than staying on trend. It also seemed to whisper: 'anxious'. Or maybe just: 'cautious'. There were even murmurs of: 'admirable' as, I guessed, there was something to be admired in a person who was so unashamedly yellow-hooded. It suggested a lack of concern for what others might think (i.e. ‘he looks a bit silly’) and a determination to get out and about, whatever the conditions outside.

One thought skipped along after another, and I began to wonder whether I should buy something reflective – a little armband, perhaps, or something to stick on my bag if I'm ever walking at night. 'I probably should,' I supposed. It would be sensible (even if I’m not exactly prone to nightly saunters. Muggers, murderers, moths etc: too many potential dangers lurking in the dark).

But, I continued to think (the highly-visible man now out of sight, my book, unread, in my lap), in spite of the fact that – yes – it would be sensible to buy a reflective something-or-other, it’s highly unlikely that I ever will. What with all the other things I need to do, need to spend my money on, it’s not really high on the priority list. 

So really, I realised, if I were to go out of my way to buy a – I don’t know – a glow-in-the-dark wrist band or something ...it would be strange, wouldn’t it? Even if it was prudent. It would say something. (‘Poor Melissa! Such a worrier. Loosen up a little, won't you?’)

Not that I particularly want to buy a reflective garment. But how strange, I thought (rain still falling, less vibrant anoraks now passing the window), how interesting to think: if I ever did decide to go out and buy a reflective-something-or-other, that decision might be interpreted as symptomatic of something deeper. Of what? A distrust of all seeming well, maybe. An overly keen awareness of life’s unpredictability. An inarticulated fear, perhaps, of the real world, of risk taking, of love...

♥

(P.S. I’m not trying to 'diagnose' all people who wear reflective clothes, by the way. I’m just remembering a thought that I followed... and wondering where the boundary lies between being cautious and afraid.)

(P.P.S. After musing on the Case of the Sensible albeit Somewhat Silly Looking Anoraked Man - and also knowing the difficulties of seeing dog walkers when I'm driving at night - I actually think Topshop et al. should start making coats with luminous yellow reflective belts or stripes or fun glow-in-the-dark shapes so that being safe wouldn't be such a big deal. It would actually be sort of cool. I might sell this idea to the high street... y'all heard it from me first.)

(P.P.P.S. The pictures are kind of unrelated to the words. Just a small collection of things that have made me pause recently and - click - need to take a picture of.)