A Hole In Time…

29 Feb  – An ‘extra’ day – our wedding day many years ago. Unusually husband is home to share it and we are taking a drive to Dartmoor – and my childhood holiday haunts – where I learnt to ride across country, to be alone in the space and to drift through into my own world where  stories began to form.

Dreams

Dreams

It was also the place I took husband to see when I first met him and where we returned to the day after we got married – it cloaked it’s self in a light coat of glistening white snow that day and glittered coldly for us as we visited friends and made merry.

It was the place my parents had honeymooned and went back to every chance they got. Even growing up in the countryside – as I did –  Dartmoor represented an greater freedom to roam for me and in the company of the two sisters who ran the farm we stayed on I learned a love of farming – and decided that it was something ‘girls could do’ – because they and their mother obviously did.

Tomorrow I will step into that magical extra day of this year and also though a hole in time to a place populated by memories and people – some now gone – where I was always happy and free and in good company.

Life is a tricky beast at best and I hope that those memories – good though they are – don’t stop me making new ones and enjoying the day for and of it’s self – after all when husband and I flipped a coin to see if we would go through with the ceremony I doubt either of us had much thought to our 50+ year old selves and what we would be thinking about 29 Feb 2016.

 

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Creativity…

Dreams

Dreams

Creativity is?

I think it is in all of us – expressing it  unrepressed is often an issue.

Take me – I don’t sing as well as the rest of my family. I play do not play any instrument well – largely due to the fact I didn’t realise I hadn’t learnt to read music – and that may be related to the first point. So in with the shame of poor comparison and the inability to magically understand what others could – I stopped expressing myself musically in any way and was quickly relegated to the far section of the school band where those of us only fit to shake maracas were found. Yet I listen to music and I soar – my mood lifts if I am sad and  my creativity flows into words on a page – now.

I had the same ‘problem’ with all kinds of crafts – those not requiring glue and sprinkles – everyone else was better, more talented – what ever – and a Brown Owl christened me Tarzan when I broke the wool rather than wait for the scissors – 45 years later I still feel crushed!

The rest of the family cook – and luckily so do I – and not having any competition for the kitchen in our household I could have a go without fear. Up until I started writing regularly and working out how to put those ideas into a novel shape- I would have said my only creative outlet was cooking – an specifically cooking for other people’s enjoyment – my way of expressing love.

I was listening to a Marie Forleo video this afternoon and she was interviewing Elizabeth Gilbert  Author of Big Magic – I was expecting a cheerfully inspiring  Marie offering – but found my self really drawn into their long conversation an for what it is worth I stopped multi tasking – and just sat and listened…

I am fairly launch hardened these days after 18 months  Out And About On Line – but I bought this book ‘Big Magic ‘ and am already reading it.

Creativity is the flame of our souls – we forget to shelter it from forces beyond our control at our peril – without it we are just puppets. Don’t dance to someone else’s tune – make your own music, sing your own song, write your own story, colour your own world and feed your own soul with the foods that nourish you – feed others with love and tolerance as you will – but savour the essence of you in everything you do.

Avoid Falling Flat

Colour your own world…

 

 

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The Art Of Aloneness…

I learnt this the hard way  – at 23 I thought I was facing loneliness when I took over this farm – in fact it was ‘aloneness’ I was facing.

Dreams

Dreams

Confidence to be alone in the crowd and not panic. Confidence to be physically alone and to engage with solitude. Confidence to move through life  ‘doing your own thing’ whilst avoiding ‘selfish self absorption’ is trickier as we seem intrinsically as a species  to favour crowds, togetherness and families  – I guess because it is indicative of survival of the species often the worst thing in the world seems to be getting the label of ‘loner’.

It is a cliche but we ARE all alone – but in my experience we will all rather call it loneliness and often blame ourselves or our situation for it…

My experience of being situationally alone on this farm a great deal has shown me that to get the most out of being alone you need to make the effort to find out why you are there – ‘lonely’ misery can make you forget – and why you are there – after all we rarely have to be anywhere but for choosing to stay – and if we choose to stay we do so because we get something out of our situation either positively or passively.

These are often hard thoughts to have with yourself.

I embraced being alone here on the farm many years ago now – in fact I struggle now I am not alone – what I wasn’t expecting – was to feel occupationally alone. In my case these two thoughts are linked – one way I dealt with being physically alone was to write first journals of the farm and then stories and now novels and blogs.

Now that my mum lives here and my husband is not away so often I am rarely physically alone – and I freely admit it is hard sometimes and I resort to headphones and closing the doors – what is challenging that in farming I am surrounded by farming neighbours but in writing that isn’t the case so although I haven’t physically moved I am once more alone.

I feel occupationally alone – so I have had to ask my self why am I HERE doing this? Why? I had to remind my self – and keep on doing so – of the interconnectedness of the two – from the one came the other…

I learned to reach out and join in on line – I have not yet found a writing group in my area close enough that I could join – but I remain open to that possibility – I use Write Words who are a brilliant bunch of writers for support and mutual critique and I use Holly Lisle for training, course work and ongoing support. I use Michael Hyatt’s Platform U as he is so technically interesting and incredibly generous with his time and free stuff, Darren Rowse and Jeff Goins ditto re blogging, periscoping and all that jazz – I still have to face the day as the only writer in the household and I have found Brendon Brushard’s free material very helpful to remind me ‘it isn’t what I do it is how I show up’.

The point is that none of this found me – in dealing with being physically alone I had to get to a place where I engaged with it – and sometimes lean over the hedge to chat to the neighbour and ask for help – or offer it – and in being occupationally alone I have to go out on line and find like minded folk who help and continue to inspire me.

None of this makes me a better person and easier to live with – it isn’t a personality transplant – but it does give me some kind of chance of seeing my creative dreams through to fruition so I don’t become the sole survivor of my own good idea – which would be lonely.

So square peg round hole?

Why are you doing this? What are you getting out of it? If you don’t like the answer – do something else.

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Wet N Windy…

Replaces Bright And Cold as blog tile for this week – if it changes AGAIN before Friday’s publication I am stuffed 🙂

And What Happened Next...

And Spring Will Come…

Winter is as winter does I guess and the base line here at least is that the equines are running wild and free and only stop occasionally to see if I have any carrots. Though Rufe DID call out this morning when the lights went on which seemed to mean ‘grass is getting low and hay is required’ but when I provided hay he wandered off – and it was nice hay. 🙂

Must check when Dan is due to tidy around Bud’s bare feet – cannot see any point in re shoeing until it is Mild Balmy And Spring Like – and has been a while… I must be getting feeble!

So more a writing week than a riding one but spring will come and that will change…

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If…

IF…

If I could explain what I need from loved ones when I am writing and revising – I would.

If I could avoid the trip wires laid by well meant, well loved folk – I would.

If I could explain about going between thought and reality – I would.

If I could explain about getting lost in my own thoughts while doing other things – I would.

If I could explain anything to you I would.

Would you ever understand?

Well I am gonna keep trying anyway – as I can see how hard you guys are trying to help me on my way!!! 🙂

This week …

Progress has been made on the revision on Hacked Off and I sat in the middle of chaos and trusted that it would be OK.  It was  –  I finished that exercise  of HTRN reasonably confident  I had been taking in what I was doing and not just sitting there like a rabbit in the headlights – or snow blind from my world turning  white from many coats of paint… I even got the tee shirt

It must be so - got the tee shirt...

It must be so – got the tee shirt…

Forgot to tell  The Muse…

Suddenly I realise My Muse has flounced off when I sit to write this presumably because the world isn’t as IT planned.

Fine…

I will get on with out it – I haven’t missed posting this year and just because my morning hasn’t been as I would have wished doesn’t mean I am not going to show up.

The Broad Band hasn’t shown up either so no picture today – yet – I will add something really cheerful later!

Spring is coming...

Spring is coming…

Happy Days!

 

 

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Writing Week…

Spent week doing other things…ice horse

Put together a sound track for the novel Hacked Off that I can revise to as it helps me keep the tone and pace I want – and chose some photos to use for potential cover shots from Fotilla  as it helps to see ‘a product’ ASAP rather than a pile of paper work I think. 🙂

I also spoke to local web design engineer about the Blue Host situation and he said no – it sounds a lot of time to sort out – may be best left as it is. Mark Bede Black and White Computers is due in Friday to have a look at another issue with this machine – so I may ask him. But opting out of Blue Host may take longer than I want the sites to be down and combining the three accounts to one with Blue Host may not give me quite the result I want either apparently -but I have yet to follow that through.

Take out from this experience is…

When you don’t know what you don’t know it is hard to ask the right questions or realise your knowledge gap.

My experience with ‘Idiots Guides’ are that no matter how Idiot proof they think they are – they are not THIS Idiot proof…

Revision of Hacked Off?

Some revision done – but with husband now home for a few weeks – my working day is broken up to very small chunks of time – which I am out of the habit  of using to work in and my early morning long session now has another person shuffling about making toast in!! Like now. 🙂

My take out from this experience…

My experience has shown me that not panicking about this is the most productive way to deal with it – and accept that for a few weeks I can look at the work through a different perspective – planning a day trip to the setting of Hacked Off for a start.

I have also bought some Royalty Free stock photos from Fotilla that I am going to play with to make a place holder cover for Hacked Off so it can go on the Book Table here with ‘Coming Soon!’ tagged near by.

I will use Simon Whistler’s Rocking Self Publishing free video tutorials that he has to do this because it worked – I need to schedule a day to re watch the lessons and set it up

One thing I am still working out is the photo on the FB page issue – hence I will have to remember to post this separately tomorrow – if I bother to use FB at all this week – It may be on the list to ask when Mark comes up to sort out the setting in my Email program that is temperamental right now.

Looking ahead alreadyWater horse 4

I am thinking about what comes after revision to get Hacked Off  into book shape so I think next writing week will constist of brain storming and research and an overhaul of my wall charts that layout my To Do list and Progress chart for it. Happy Days. 🙂

 

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