Hi all, just thought I’d fill you in on my writing progress.
It rained heavily here last night – everything I had outside the shoe box sized house where I currently live got soaking wet. I heard the rain getting heavier as I fell asleep. By that stage in the day’s proceedings, I was so whacked I didn’t even think of the towels I’d left outside on the drying rack.
In the middle of the night I woke up in a puddle of water round my belly area (I’m a side sleeper). Earlier in the year I was ill with a stomach ulcer caused by the bacteria H.pylori. The doctor treated me with heavy antibiotics and put me on this drug which turned out to be physically addictive as well as coming with the warning that extended use could cause cancer. On my last visit to him I said I still had some symptoms. He told me to keep taking the drug. I said I didn’t want to. He said: ‘Why not? I take it myself.’ After turning back to his computer screen he added: ‘And it causes cancer’. He gave a sad laugh. I said goodbye and walked out of the medical clinic thinking – well I won’t go back there again.
-anyway, to cut a long story short – I battled with getting off the addictive drug (well truly I still am doing that – I’m down to 1/2 tablet one night every fortnight when I have a bout of sickness). Now I’m treating myself with the alternative cures I have found online – dietary modifications, mastic gum, aloe vera juice and, most comforting of all, a hot water bottle on my belly while I sleep.
All well and good until last night when I woke up in said puddle of water. I had to get up – get change into dry PJs – pull off all my bedding -heave my heavy mattress round so the wet bit wasn’t where I wanted to sleep – put a towel on the wet patch – remake the bed – then, get back to sleep. (no hot water bottle this time)
So I did all that and fell into a deep sleep until after 8 this morning. Somehow during that time water had worked its way into my dreams and washed my mind clear of the writing debris that was clogging up mind – my obsessive thoughts about whether the word ‘ridiculous’ worked better in a particular sentence than the word ‘disturbing’ and, even more perplexing, the digression I’d written myself into which led to hours or possibly days, wondering whether I should force my character Terran to go barefoot when she’d worn shoes her whole life. (The story line is – she gets lost in the forest in a rainstorm when she finally leaves The Institute, the survivalist community she was raised in. Her shoes get soaking wet and squelch when she walks…)
When I eventually woke up I realised whether or not Terran went barefoot was totally irrelevant to the story. She’s a practical woman. She’s bound to have another pair of shoes in her backpack to wear if her walking shoes get wet. Along side this not so profound realisation was a clear idea on how I am going to pull all the disparate ideas in the story into a coherent thread at the end.
Coffee has been needed as I rig up a heater (safely) to dry out the mattress – and the Nag Champa incense sticks which got wet on the table on my porch during the rain. I’m working out my book ideas in between doing physical stuff – like where to keep 2 doonas, a polar fleece blanket, a queen size bed sheet and four pillows while you dry the mattress in a house the size of a shoe box.
I must say though the world outside the shoebox looks beautiful after all that rain. So soft. Early in a wet spring in my part of the world purple is the dominant flower colour. In the garden on the property where I rent the shoebox the garden has been planted with foliage in various shades of green, grey and dark red/black. Purple flowers of various size and hue stand out against this foliage backdrop. The weatherboard fence on the edge of the property has been painted a soft mahogany red, while the nearby houses, roads and sky are all in various hues of grey. The highlights in all of this is a single bright red daisy like flower and little pops of yellow flower buds on a little plant outside my door.
The rain, now steadily falling, has taken my corner of the world into a place of subdued beauty.
So that’s about it for a writing progress update – the story of HOPE is progressing slowly at present but I’m feeling the ideas I’m working out right now will pull the thing together in my mind. I still have a pile of new scenes to write (they are planned out already). My self imposed deadline of December is fast approaching…
To wind this rambling post up the idea I’m working on right is flowing around the concept of resonance. I’m thinking about how it is through by coming into resonance with the world outside ourselves that we find our way to hope. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this…
Wayfaring 