Ode to Julia Cameron

Three pages a day. Such good advice. I'm a writer. I'm supposed to be able to write anywhere, anytime: empty my head, pour it out word by word, line by line, thought by precious thought, onto the blank page in front of me. Search the corners, shine the searchlight: there must be something lurking in the corners, hidden in my subconscious mind ready for this therapeutic, warming-up exercise. I wait silently, stealthily, hoping to creep up on it and surprise it. Maybe if I look the other way, whistle a little disarming tune and look nonchalant, I can trap my unsuspecting thoughts, tempt them out into the open.

 

There's no doubt about it; I am an intelligent woman. I must be thinking something of value, something I can grasp hold of and ease gently out of its hiding place into the outside world. Someone would love to read about it, of that I am sure. If only I could just penetrate the darkness and extract that precious nugget of wisdom. Three pages is not much, after all. With years of creative writing behind me and a degree in English Literature, I have something to contribute. My powers of observation are honed and standing to attention; my senses are primed - sight, sound, taste, touch and smell - ready to record the wonders of the natural world around me.

 

I sit, pondering, surrounded by luscious green grass, a closely mown cricket pitch with an old-fashioned roller standing in readiness nearby. The tall poplar trees are sighing in the breeze. The old church clock tells me that it is ten to two on this fine spring afternoon and the stream behind my seat is rushing along, murmuring busily. And what am I thinking? ("You have a good brain, Julia. Why don't you use it?" as my father used to say.) All I am thinking, all I can muster, is to observe amidst all of this that these young women passing at this moment by my bench, disturbing my peace and tranquillity, are using only one small yellow ball to exercise simultaneously four yapping, troublesome dogs. It's a breeze! One small ball, one lazy underarm throw and four dogs - two large and athletic, two small and irritatingly yappy - are tearing uncontrollably around the recreation field, competing with each other, barking and snarling, in their attempts to capture the prize and thus spending all their copious energy in exercising themselves and going home exhausted. Job done! Round and round they go; round and round go my thoughts and after all is said and done, this is the one small nugget of truth that this intelligent, creative mind can achieve.

 

But wait a moment... wait just one moment! Let us count up and see. Yes, it is true: my fellow writer and inspirer was justified, correct in her attempts to spur me on. I am approaching the finishing line! My trail of words, phrases and thoughts are laid out behind me, line by line, page by page of this scruffy exercise book which I am steadily filling up. My thoughts have triumphed. My writer's training has stood me in good stead. I have run the race, I have fought the good fight and the prize is laid up before me: one, no, two, no, three pages, to the very last line!

Reciprocity: The Joy of Dialogue

Monologues are all very well. Done skilfully, an accomplished actor can keep his/her audience entranced for many minutes or even hours. Done badly...well.. enough said. A blog is a kind of monologue, I suppose, but open to the possibility of 'comment' or even 'chat'. At best it is a dialogue.

 

My aim, I confess, when writing my blog, is not for monologue. We all need human interaction in our lives and, whilst I get my share on a daily basis, with neighbourly chats, exchanges of merry banter over the supermarket checkout, cups of tea with family and friends and the growing number of clubs and societies with which I am affiliated, I can always use a little more sparkling repartee from the casual onlooker or blog reader.

 

Dialogue is a wonderful thing and I am always delighted when readers let me know that a) they have read my ramblings and b) even better, they have an opinion to express, a point of information to pass on or a complaint. For such things are the stuff of life to a writer - even the complaints!

 

For this reason, I would like to offer up a vote of thanks to my friend who writes: "White cherry blossom is on Murello cherry trees – we have one in the front garden which is going mad this year with blossom." Not a complaint but a point of information. So now we know! This is why the loveliest tree - the cherry - subject of my most recent blog appears decked out in white blossom in Houseman's poem, whereas my experience of cherry trees is mainly pink. Thank you, Rosemary. Maybe she will read this, maybe her interest in my blog will have waned by now. This is the precarious nature of blogging. But we have experienced dialogue, reciprocity and a mutual exchange of information and interest and I am satisfied.

 

Life, it seems to me, is at best about reciprocity. It sparks, inspires, annoys, infuriates, satisfies, delights and provokes laughter, tears and sometimes apathy. But it gets under your skin; it proves to me that I am alive - and that you are too! So keep it coming, please. I am happy to use my services (when inspiration strikes) to gladden, delight, inspire and annoy. Please feel free to do the same!

The Green-eyed Monster

He's writing again! In his fine, black, spidery hand he's being creative, sticking cut-out reproductions of his paintings in his little black book, annotating, documenting, illustrating... 'a year in the life of...'.

 

Journaling. It's all the rage and his journal is no mere diary but a through-the-year record of his artistic adventures and creative experiments. Jealous? Me? Well, yes, as it happens. That little green-eyed monster is in full fling, stirred up by my own repressed creative talents and a severe case of writer's block. It was a great idea of his and, so far, brilliantly executed, each page filled with the latest creative idea, exquisitely expressed in pen and wash, oils or watercolour. When paint is exhausted, photography takes over. I watch, frustrated, as he deftly fits together imaginatively visualised and realised collages of stunning photos, casually tossed off over the last couple of years with his new digital camera.

 

"I shall need to buy another of these books soon" he says, adding insult to injury. I would be proud to own just one of his autobiographical art diaries, bursting with all the evidence of his newfound passion. Not that I begrudge him his good fortune. It's just that my own ventures into journaling always founder - too sporadic, too wordy and frankly uninspired. However, I have had my turn with new impassioned ventures: my first foray into autobiographical self-publishing (Stories of our Childhood), my frenzied attempts to write and publish poetry in a much-coveted poetry collection, my first commission as a weekly column writer for an international expatriate on-line journal and my enthusiastic first attempts at blogging. Blogger.com: the road to world fame and acclaim (not!). No, I have had my turn, enjoyed my obsessions, felt the warm encouragement or urgent prompting of my muse. But right at this moment the spark is gone and I am left bereft, bemused and cut adrift from that pulsating life flow, that huge wave that ploughed relentlessly up the beach, carrying me, its willing prisoner, triumphant, on its crest. My wave has receded now, leaving me in the shallows, plagued by jealousy and regret, until another wave comes in and my muse takes pity on me.

 

So go to it, friend! Enjoy it while it lasts. Plunder your treasure trove for all it's worth. And I will wait, silently, in the shadows, wrestling with my little green monster until fortune, my muse and that great big wave come again and sweep me off my feet.

Life, Stand Still Here!

So, why do we do it? We wrestle with paint, clay or poetry to create that perfect design, that shape, that collage of textures and colours, or that perfect orchestration of words and phrases - why? What is it that drives us to agonise, to cudgel our poor overworked brains, to polish, to draft and redraft until we have achieved something as close as we can manage to the vision that lies before us, taunting us and drawing us on to create. We are artists, all of us, in our different ways. We create. It is in our nature. But why?

 

In her novel, To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf grappled with this question of what it is that drives us to take disparate objects, colours, shapes or even people and bring them together into order, to create a thing of beauty. For Woolf, it is the bringing together of words that drives her. Mrs Ramsay, modelled on the author's mother, brings people together in the novel in a series of unforgettable moments and strives to create harmony out of the chaos of everyday life.

For Lily Briscoe moments must be made permanent on canvas. Paint is Lily's medium with which she transforms the fluidity of life to the fixity and permanence of art. Deeply aware of the struggles of her sex to count for something in the world that is more than the inevitability of romance, marriage, child-bearing and domesticity, Lily's work is her art. It is her reason for being. She knows that her efforts to master artistic form 'roused one to perpetual combat, challenged one to a fight in which one was bound to be worsted'. Nevertheless, she persisted. 'Why then did she do it?' she asked herself.

Walking along the wooded shores of one of our local estuaries, fascinated by the wintry outline of the trees, the colours, the misty quality of the hills and the loneliness of the landscape, I ask myself a similar question. Why do I feel this continual urge to write what I see around me? What am I trying to achieve? What am I trying to prove to myself? What is it that drives me? The more one looks, with the eyes of an artist, at the world around us, the more one sees out there. Every day brings new discoveries to the artist. The trees are no longer just 'brown and green'. The lacy patterns of their outlines in winter are no longer dull and depressing, but infinitely varied, as they stretch up their branches against the subtle colours of a winter's sunset.

Painter, sculptor, wordsmith alike, we are all the same in our painstaking search for that elusive design which will make life stand still. Life moves too fast. Each moment, for the artist, brings fresh cornucopias of impressions, fresh bounty, a superfluity of beautiful moments to record. We are desperate to fix them on canvas, paper, stone, or whatever medium we choose, lest they escape. "Slow down!" we cry. "Life, stand still here!" But the infinite escapes us once more, finite mortals that we are, and we are forced to try again.

 

Luminosity

I love these writing exercises! Sit me down, surrounded by familiar writing companions, give me a word and start me off. One, two, three, go! Write for ten minutes, spontaneously, carelessly, with abandon and see what happens... 'Luminosity!'

 

Already the word is drawing me in. Fascinated by colour, light, things that glow, I am in my element. I will follow this word, this thought and see where it leads me.

Luminous. It conjures up ideas of pulsating light. It is larger than life, conspicuous and illuminated, standing out from the shadows and very high profile.

This is not where I like to be. I am a shy, reserved person who does not like to be in the limelight (limelight? is this a special kind of greenish glow?). I prefer to sit a little at the edge, listening to what is said, watching what is occurring and only venturing a comment now and then when I have something to say. I do not like to be luminous. However, please do not misunderstand... I am not invisible. I like you to listen when I speak to you. I just like to glow a little - quietly.

But I love luminous people. I love their fire, their spark, their inspiration. So please feel free to glow noisily in my presence. Be exuberant, be passionate, be luminous! The world is a dark place and luminosity can rescue us from the shadows. For me it also carries the idea of transparency - of something that is clear, honest, true and open to view. I like that. I need more transparency in my life - maybe more luminosity. My natural reserve can be an obstacle in this respect.

And so I write. I live sometimes in the shadows. Verbally I can only glow a little, but in the medium of the written word sometimes I dare a little luminosity.

Like a Breath of Fresh Air

Inspiration! Such a fragile commodity. Where does it come from and where does it go? As a trainee writer (for when is a writer not in training?) I find the question intriguing, frustrating, fascinating and impossible. That age-old affliction of writer's block infests my foggy mind, paralysing my best intentions. No matter how hard or long my pen wanders over the page it produces nothing I can be truly proud of. I write, yes, I form the words in my mind and transfer them laboriously to the page and at the end - I find nothing original, nothing really worth the label of creativity or freshness. Where has it all gone?

A breath of fresh air! A visit to old friends. Bliss! The familiarity, the camaraderie, the knowledge that I belong (even though I have gone away), that I am appreciated and in some measure understood brings a breakthrough. 'Luminosity' - the word hangs in the air. Ten minutes of 'speedwriting', unpremeditated, unpolished, careless but gloriously free! 'Luminosity' I write. 'Already I am captivated by the thought and I will write and see where the word leads me.' And so I put my pen fearlessly to the paper and write, serene, confident, poised, knowing that this time the words will come, they will arrange themselves oh so gracefully on the page and at the end I shall read them out, not falteringly but proudly, knowing that once again the writers' circle has worked its magic. Inspiration! The muse that had left me has taken me gently by the hand and led me back into its sweet influence. I wonder, will it last?

Inspiration. Maybe this is a mis-spelling. Maybe all the time we should have spelled it 'friendship'. Is this the missing key? To know I am loved. To be secure in the knowledge that I am approved, whether I write well or badly, whether my brain is foggy or clear as a bell. We all need this kind of inspiration and I am resolved to go where I can find it. We must leave behind the stagnant pools and head for fresh, sweet water that wells up out of new springs, wherever we may find them. My visit was temporary - a rich but narrow slice of my old life which cannot be sustained - but it has inspired me to redouble my efforts to search for fresh wells of life which encourage and sustain personal growth. They have dangled the prize in front of me again and I will press on in search of that glow, that luminescence that transforms life from frustration to success. Thank you old friends. The world needs people like you.