Scribbling into the void

and scrabbling for meaning

I can’t even remember when I last posted on here, nor when I posted something about my writing on any of my socials. I have to admit to feeling deflated by the whole anti-immigration stance of a UK government I actually lent my vote to last July. Exhausted by constantly having to explain to people why immigration is a good thing, how kindness and caring are good things.

I stopped caring about writing for a couple of days, in truth, because it seemed (and still does) that, regardless of who writes words of common sense and caring, they’re not listened to. This is not a gripe about my personal reach. It’s a gripe about people who don’t care about other people, people who hate other people.

But then I decided to try something else in my head (and I managed to articulate this properly in my therapy session last week after I’d started doing it). I’ll try to exercise free will over those things I can control. So I’ll no longer write a poem a day because I think I have to. I’ll no longer do two sessions of Greek learning a day because I think I have to.

I’ll just do what I feel like doing. Make a conscious choice. Like getting more boxes of books out of the shed where they’ve been sitting since we moved here four years ago, and discover some old treasures. Like lying on the bed and reading instead of doing doing doing. Like relishing doing the washing up. Like weeding for an hour although I hate it, but because I want to do it because M’s busy off somewhere helping someone else, and I want to do something nice for her. And while I was weeding at the front of the house, I met Heather and Trevor who’ve lived round here forever and who were lovely, and whom I’d never met before.

And, yes, I’ve been writing lots - just not showing it to anyone or sharing it on my socials, except for Island Of Strangers last week, I think. That’s what I meant with scribbling into the void. And at the same time, I am truly scrabbling for meaning in the words that do hit the page. And, interestingly, most of what I’ve written has been long-hand with a pen into a small journal I decided to start carrying round with me.

Then, today, finally, after almost a month away from even thinking about fiction prose, I spent an hour writing a new novel, mainly dialogue, which is really what I like writing best. Two protagonists finding out about each other, playing word games, being cagey and shy. I liked that.