bluesinateacup

Did I say ‘I love writing’? Scrub that. It’s the most frustrating occupation on earth. I’m sitting here at 7.43pm on day four. It feels like midnight. I have a more or less blank page in front of me, and my ‘editor’ has taken over. This is a disaster. Nothing I write is ever good enough for my editor. I’ve rearranged the last sentence four times already. And now I’ve done the sentence that said I was rearranging things. See what I mean? I’m tweaking grammar. Reading everything to make sure it’s exactly right. Never mind 500 words. It’ll be a miracle if I get to 50. I also have a week’s-worth of laundry to contend with and a Victoria sandwich to bake before I can even think about calling it a day. Oh, and I finished the wine off last night, so I can’t even promise myself a nice glass of Shiraz to celebrate when it’s all done.

For the first time since I started this challenge I’ve worked from home today. I had a clear morning. I should have been able to write a novel the length of War and Peace by lunch time. Instead, I’ve edited. Nitpicked. Juggled and rejuggled words, phrases and sentences. I started out with 424 words of a short story. I ended up with 526 words. A lot of them are different from the original words, so in theory I could claim to have written the whole thing today. But I’d be fooling myself. In reality I’ve only written 102 words, apart from this blog.

I know of writers who use various strategies to deal with their internal editors. Some say the clothes they wear make a difference. Sitting in a different place. Writing and editing at different times of day. As yet I haven’t hit upon the right approach for me. Once the editor kicks in I’m more or less at her mercy and I’d really welcome suggestions from fellow sufferers if any happen to pass this way.

One lesson I am beginning to learn though, is that writing is all about keeping going. Keep your hand moving Natalie Goldberg says. And it works. Rather than waiting for mystical inspiration, I’m actually being forced to write. Or rather, not to not write … and whether I like it or not, there are words on the page to prove it. Thank you One25 for giving me the motivation to do something I’ve wanted to do for most of my life. And thank you to the friend who raised the stakes on Day One by pointing out I’d pitched my personal penalty for failure far too low. I hope you’re reading this. I hope you know who you are. You were absolutely right. Faced with the onslaught from my editor today I would have thrown in the towel if it hadn’t been for you.

And now I think it’s time to share a little of the ‘off-the-blog’ writing I’ve been doing. So I’ll leave you with a short extract from the story I’ve been working on today. The working title is ‘Every Picture Tells a Story’.  I just hope I’ve got enough eggs for that Victoria sandwich …

I run it in my head. Saturday afternoon. The first in July and the first hot one of the year. The girl on the edge of the pavement sits with her head in her hands. Skinny and suntanned. Too young to drink. Her friends, a boy and a girl all arms and legs and no more than children, discuss what to do. Brandish mobile phones. I go into the bakery. The queue’s insane. All I want – no, need – is this bottle of water. I think about ripping the lid off and drinking it on the spot. Presenting the confused Saturday boy with an empty bottle. I don’t of course. I queue. I pay for the water and regret choosing a shop without ice cream. It’s that kind of hot.

Out in the street I fumble with the lid. The police have arrived. A man and a woman. They’re asking the girl to stand up. Coaxing her to drink water. She won’t move. She wants them to leave her to die for God’s sake. Maybe she’ll wake up and find it was all a nightmare. If life was only so simple. The crowd flows round her. Heads turn. Shake. What can you do? The boy’s gangly. Huge trousers clinging to his hipbones. T-shirt crushed up in his hand. I bet his mum ironed that this morning. Sunburn creeps pink over his scrawny shoulders. Too young for tattoos, he’s starkly naked. He shuffles. His eyes dart at the milling shoppers. Calculating for escape. The sober girl’s collaborating with the police. Being grown-up. Crop top and mini skirt, washboard stomach. Cajoling her friend one minute. Looking at her phone the next. The blue plastic strip yields to my fumbling. The water’s tepid. I think they only have the fridge for effect. It’s not switched on at all. The girl on the pavement says she feels sick.

I love writing. But it can be a terrible distraction from other minor essentials. Eating, for example. Washing up. Even making tea. The last teabag sat in an empty cup for almost an hour before I remembered it was there. I had to boil the kettle again. Now I’ve left the same teabag in water and come back to get this down while it’s fresh in my mind. The tea will probably be undrinkable by the time I remember it’s there.

The trouble is, I get too involved. It’s the same with reading. With life, really. Once a story grabs me I’m more or less incapable of thinking about anything else. Multi-tasking goes out of the window. I eat, sleep and breathe story. And that’s not very practical most of the time. I have to tear myself away to go to work. Go shopping. Go to bed. Even go to the loo. Then I lose the thread. I think that’s why I find it so hard to finish anything. Reality gets in the way.

And all the best ideas come to me when there’s no way I can write them down. Three in the morning. I can’t even hold a pen at that hour. Halfway across the M32 flyover. In the market hall in Ikea. I defy anyone to write a coherent sentence there. Many years ago I bought an old-fashioned dictaphone, complete with cassettes. I thought I’d record thoughts as I went along. Genius. The trouble was, I was far too embarrassed to use it. I’m not sure it ever got out of the box.

All this frustration comes from a positive. I’ve started to write properly today. Something other than this blog. Three hundred and thirty four words of something. I’m comfortably over my 500 words for today already. I have a story taking shape, and I may well continue working on it well beyond my allotted 500 words. For the curious, the story includes the words ‘gossamer’ and ‘marmalade’, but that’s all I’m saying on the subject for the time being.

Now, before I rescue that cup of tea, I need to remind myself why I’m putting myself through all this. I’m giving up ‘not being a writer’ for 125 days (or maybe for life …) in support of One25’s work with street sex workers in Bristol. Please feel free to encourage me and to support this amazing bunch of people by sharing this blog, or by donating at http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-web/fundraiser/showFundraiserProfilePage.action?userUrl=JeanMutch  Thank you.

Day two. I’m beginning to think writing blog posts could become a convenient excuse for not writing anything else. I found it alarmingly easy last night to notch up 500 words of writing about writing without actually writing anything. This isn’t really the object of the exercise. I seem set to do it again today nonetheless.

The trouble is I’m a butterfly. When it comes to creativity, I flit from one fascinating project to the next, but I rarely settle for long. After all, if I select one option I have to let go of all the other amazing possibilities. I might miss something. What if I make the wrong choice? I had the same problem the first time I went into a large book store. I had a book token. Those were the days … I was fully intending to buy a book. I left empty-handed because I just couldn’t make up my mind. I was used to the dusty little bookshop opposite the Post Office. The sheer volume of choice overwhelmed me.

When – or if – I settle on a project, the main problem is completing it. I’m rubbish at endings. I’m not good at finishing anything really. In my living room there’s a box. It’s a large box – a blanket box to be precise – and it’s full of knitting wool. Somewhere in the bowels of the box there’s a jacket I started to knit when my daughter was a baby. Size 12 to 18 months. It’s all done bar one sleeve. Her son’s too big to wear it now. It’s probably the oldest of the never-quite-finished garments in the box, but it’s by no means the only one. See what I mean?

The ‘Documents’ folder on the laptop bears witness to the same phenomenon. There are poems waiting to be edited. Short stories. Some no more than a single paragraph. One less than three lines long. Another mysteriously entitled ‘Summer 250’. I have no idea why. The folder also contains the beginnings of four novels. At least I think there are only four … The oldest is over 50,000 words long. I last worked on it in June 2006. Needless to say, it has no ending and I have no idea what the ending might have been if I’d written it. I’m more or less certain it won’t get written now. To be honest, one or two of the characters are a touch too true-to-life. I’m not ready for a libel suit.

The others are more promising. It’s only eighteen months since I last worked on a futuristic novel set in a land of religious fundamentalism. I like the story and the opening works well. I’m better at opening than closing. There’s also a vitriolic novel about dysfunctional relationships. It hasn’t been touched for over a year. I once read from it for a programme on local radio in Luton. I never heard the broadcast. There’s a much newer novel as well. This one started life as a short story last autumn, but outgrew the format. It’s around 5000 words long at the moment. It’s also based on a dysfunctional relationship. I write about those a lot.

Finally, there’s my very own answer to Harry Potter. With a female lead of course. OK, so it’s less than 250 words long and I’m already struggling with the plot, but the screen rights beckon me on. After all, even JK Rowling had to start somewhere. Now, how’s that for an ending?

This has been the first day of my ‘Give it up for One25’ challenge. I’m trying to give up ‘not being a writer’. I’m asking people to sponsor me to write at least 500 words every day from now for the next 125 days, to raise money for One25‘s amazing work with street sex workers in Bristol. This blog is the record of my journey.

At least in theory, giving up not doing something turns the negative of ‘giving up’ into a positive, so I’d love to be able tell you that I leapt out of bed at the first note of the dawn chorus, seized a pen and completed 500 words of epic prose before my first cup of coffee. It wasn’t like that at all. In fact, it’s now 8.46 pm, I’m a little shy of 150 words, and I’m already wondering how long to make myself sit here before I can reasonably justify putting the kettle on again.

So how did the first day go? To be honest, I spent most of it frying eggs. No, really I did. Oh, and cutting the ends off burnt sausages. Doesn’t sound like fertile ground for creativity I’ll admit. But every healthy plant needs a little manure … The fact is, I’ve been working in a local community café for most of the week and it wasn’t manure at all. Not in the negative sense anyway. There hasn’t been a single day when I’ve come home without a fresh idea for a story. At this moment my head feels a bit like my hall cupboard. There’s a treasure trove in that cupboard that includes a twenty-five-year-old bicycle with two flat tyres, an LP by Keef Hartley (the first record I ever bought, I’ll have you know), the hard drive from my old PC, a collection of empty wine bottles and enough pictures to cover the walls of my flat twice over. I’m sure I’ll find a use for it all one day.

But on the whole, I think I’m more likely to find a use for my higgledy-piggledy heap of ideas. The snapshots and snippets I’ve slung into corners and not quite forgotten. Let me have a quick rummage through the last couple of days. Here’s the man at the bus stop. Flame-red trousers and 1970s moustache. Surely he’s not doing anything so mundane as going to Tesco’s? There’s a glint from that amazing sunrise. A flash of yellow from the daffodils in the corner garden. Here’s that woman. So thin a breath of wind might carry her away. She’s telling me her former husband hospitalised her so often she’s lost count. Why would you stay with a man like that? Small wonder she’s necking cheap rosé at 11.30 in the morning. Now here’s Barry. He proposes to the manager every time he comes to the café. He’s had to make do with me this week though. She’s been on holiday. I’ve just found that incident with the hat … and the three policemen … and the man in the yard of the mosque … So many stories, so little paper.

I thought at first I’d struggle to find anything to write about. Instead it seems the problem’s too much choice. Will it be a novel? A short story collection? A string of blog posts? I still don’t know. I do know it’s going to be a memorable journey, and I hope it’s also going to be a life-changing one. Now, I wonder if writing 600 words today means I only need to do 400 tomorrow …