we're all making our own sense of things
In an effort to reclaim the self-discipline I’m sure I must once have had, I have been doing that thing where you set your timer and just work at your assigned task until the timer rings.
And this is what I have learned:
the secret to making the trick with the timer work is not so much setting the timer for periods of work, but re-setting it for breaks.
One thing I am working on at the moment is a series of essays on such fascinating subects as me and the things that I think while I’m busy being me (Oh, so you mean you’re writing a blog? No, I do not mean that, please shut up brain and let me write).
Partly because of that, and partly because of other reasons, I have been reading a lot of memoir and autobiography. I’ve always loved that kind of writing, that kind of book (Do you think maybe that’s why you like blogging so much? Look, I don’t know who you are, but please do shut up and let me get on with saying whatever it is I’m about to say).
Last year, I started a short course in ethics, and did lots of research and writing about ethics and life writing. I find this an endlessly fascinating area to explore, particularly because I think there are almost as many answers as there are writers. More answers than that even, because each person who reads that writer creates another answer and so on. I think that if I’d done as my teachers had suggested and paid (why do I want to write payed?) more attention to that statistics stuff in Maths I that I would be better equipped to explain to you how many answers I think there are in the questions of ethics and life writing and so forth. Though of course, I do think there are some broad and general conclusions about how we should or should not approach life writing.
One specific area I have been looking at while I’ve been doing that research is performance comedy as life writing. I was messing around with that research a bit more at the end of last week, which led me, by various circuitous paths to be comparing Craig Sherborne’s Muck with Judith Lucy’s The Lucy Family Alphabet. No, comparing isn’t the right word, but looking at them in the context of each other and in the context of the other forms that each uses and has used to say the same and different things.
This led me to wonder once again about which form/platform/format I should use for saying what it is I want to say. You see, some of it is firmly rooted in the essays, some of it is sneaking into my fiction, and some of it is leaking into my show as I rewrite and tweak it for possible production in Adelaide.
So now I’m back where I so often seem to be. In a pickle, and I find pickles paralysing, and it’s no coincidence that we now have a nicely vacuumed floor and probably by tonight I’ll have the kitchen sorted.
(So, look, I don’t mean to bother, but this ‘right form’ you’re looking for, it wouldn’t be blogging, would it? Oh, don’t bother me now, I’ve got vacuuming to do).
Learning lots. So, so much. And answering a great number of the questions that I hoped doing my first solo show would help me answer.
But I’m wondering, still wondering, which section of the fringe I should be registering myself in. When I first registered, I spent a lot of time tossing up whether or not to put myself in comedy or theatre. I steered away from theatre in the end, because I’m not an actor and I don’t have a director. But then, in festivals at least, ‘comedy’ feels so closely aligned to the gag-punch style of comedy that I’m not sure I really fit in there either. Obviously, I want there to be laughs, but I don’t necessarily want it to be stand-up, and I’m not sketch or character comedy mostly because again with the ‘not an actor’.
For the Adelaide Fringe, I was thinking maybe I could put myself in the ‘writing’ category, but does that imply something more literary? Poetry slams and spoken word and so on.
And not that I think I’m some sort of genre-defying genius. Flicking through the Fringe guide here, I see plenty of other shows and performers that are more theatre than they are comedy, more music than they are theatre and so on.
Maybe the guide needs sub-categories. Which leads me to wonder: do other people worry over this stuff or is it just because I’m a librarian?
Did you know that there is a Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre? Neither did I. But there is.
These dudes, Clewis Productions seem to be associated with it, and we went to their Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes which was as much fun as you would hope it would be. The more I read and listen to his work (which is a lot around these parts these days), the more I am struck by the enormity of Roald Dahl’s storytelling talents.
Also, watching this performance with my newly-formed performer’s eyes, I was in awe of their ability to take volunteers from the audience and give them such substantial roles. Unpredictability, she be frizwiggling to me.
I was doing the dishes and listening to a radio programme about Muriel Spark and her new biography.
I had forgotten that Muriel Spark’s son lived with her parents. The biographer explained this by saying something along the lines of, ‘She couldn’t do the kind of writing she wanted to do and look after him’.
And that was interesting, because just that morning I’d been writing in my diary about the conflict between the two things I’m trying to combine – firstly, putting on a show; and secondly, showing my boys some of the world.
The conflict between being a writer and being a mum.
I don’t want this to be a conflict. In fact, one of the appeals of coming to Edinburgh was the opportunity to immerse my boys in my ‘work’. (For now, let’s leave aside definitions of work, and whether or not this counts towards my ‘career’ and whether or not you have to make a living from it in order for it to count as work). When I was deciding whether or not coming to Edinburgh was a good use of some very precious funds, I looked on it as a chance – probably a once-in-a-lifetime chance – to show my boys that life can be filled with all sorts of bits and pieces and in all sorts of different ways (though at the same time, reminding them – constantly – how bloody lucky they are – again, another post for another day).
My wish to show them this side of me (my ‘work’) is probably closely related to my current obsession with validating the contribution that I make to my relationship and to my family. Which is fuelled by all sorts of things. Ego; and becoming an orphan; and turning 40; and waking up and finding myself an expat wife; and having no career to speak of; oh, and being middle class enough to have the luxury of obsessing over such things.
But I do obsess over it, and that obsession has been exacerbateted by our move to Abu Dhabi where the mister and I have roles that are even more gender-defined than they were at home. I worry at the ‘example’ I set my children. I worry (and the mister does too) that our children see – that they live – such a gender-specific life where the mister goes out to work and I pick the kids up from school.
But it’s funny, because if we hadn’t moved to Abu Dhabi, I never would have come and put on my own show. I would have looked at Edinburgh, from Adelaide, and thought, ‘How could I do that with children? Just how?’
Like I said a few posts ago, when I did start thinking about doing this, I really had no idea how I was going to make it work, bringing the lads along. But like I also said, bringing them here was no harder than any other plan for being away from Abu Dhabi. And in the end it worked out okay, because the mister can get a few weeks off and he’ll be here soon and he won’t be missing his connecting flight (I’ve forgiven him for it, I really have).
But my goodness it’s up and down, polishing a script and rehearsing and looking after little boys who, even when they’re quiet, are pretty loud. Yesterday morning, the two things that I’m trying to be right now – a writer and a mother – were completely incompatible.
I needed, more than I needed anything else, to work through my script. To look at it word by word, to reassure myself it was finished, to immerse myself in it just a little bit more (I’m sure that sounds wanky, and I do apologise for that). To get this work done I woke up early, kept telling my children to ‘put the television back on’ and let them ladle sugar on their weetbix.
Perhaps they got wind of my urgency, because they co-operated by burrowing themselves away in cubbies made of curtains, playing three games of Cluedo without an argument (two pounds fifty at the oxfam shop that game cost and all that was missing was instructions), reading, working in their sketchbooks and munching their way through a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut paste and several punnets of berries.
The writer in me was almost happy. The work had to be done, and I love my script, I just love it, and working on it always makes me feel good.
But at the same time, the mother in me couldn’t help thinking that my boys weren’t doing anything that they couldn’t be doing at home. And not only that, but here they were, cooped up in one small room, with no yard for soccer or cricket and nowhere for mixing mud potions with added stones. This isn’t broadening their horizons, it’s limiting them.
I don’t want to do everything. I just want to do what I do do well.
Anyhoo, I’d made a bargain with myself (and written in my diary, so I couldn’t back out), that I would find us a routine where I spend the morning working and in the afternoons, we go exploring.
So I got a few hours done, then off we went for a run in Holyrood Park and a fossick through Our Dynamic Earth. It was brilliant. Wonderful. And when, after carefully reading all of the information and pressing all of the interactive buttons, my little boy said, ‘Yes, but who is going to tell us where the first dinosaur came from’, I would not have been anywhere else in the world. And then we ran home around – but not up – Arthur’s Seat and my goodneess me, they are thistles over there, and the crag is gorgeous and that grass really does wave in the wind and now our umbrellas have blown inside out, and how lucky are we to be seeing all this?
So I don’t know. What’s the answer?
Because one moment, those two things, being a writer and being a mother are completely incompatible. And the next, they are a perfect fit.
eternity
but not maternity, paternity or modernity
got anything?
I’ve been writing a short essay on how, after signing the registration book as Housewife, I found myself to be in the Abu Dhabi library reading “A Room of One’s Own” (they have two copies).
And then, thanks to Genevieve, I read Susan Johnson‘s blog and she said, amongst other excellent things, this: “I do know my life is enriched by my children, but I am not entirely sure my art is….it is very, very hard for me to combine writing with running a household, having children, and a marriage. Most of the world’s greatest women writers did not have children. This is not an accidental fact.”
So it seemed that although I was very much enjoying putting words into sentences and sentences into paragraphs that there was no longer any need to write the essay.
But if I keep not saying things because they’ve already been said, then what will I write about?
So I put the kettle on.
…
‘It’s as beautifully sad as a Paul Kelly song,’ I said to the mister when I went back inside to get a mid-book snack (dried peach) and refresh my cup of tea (green).
We’ve known each other a long time, the mister and I, and I could see him thinking to himself ‘oh, fuck’ and I could see him not saying, ‘Do you think that’s a good idea?’. Now, I don’t know what preparations the mister made for himself, but he was right. I was headed for a meltdown. Two days later I hit one of grief’s brick walls, which, for days has left me paralysed with fear. I’ve got not parents. Fuck. It’s the worst I’ve been since Dad died (which, I note, was barely three months ago, so, you know, it’s to be expected and all).
Of course it wasn’t the book that caused the meltdown. I believe that my subconscious knows me so well that it lead me to pack my reading material carefully, knowing that the meltdown was building and would probably come at the end of a week’s holiday.
Which is all a long-winded way of saying that I went away for a week, and during that week spent a lovely morning reclining here, listening to the sea and reading Willy Vlautin’s The Motel Life. It’s been on my to-read pile for quite some time – I would have said around a year – but I’m almost certain I first heard him on The Book Show and ordered the book pretty much straight away (as an aside, I very often love The Book Show as I did the day they were interviewing Willy, but sometimes that show makes me so mad I can’t see straight – does that happen to you, or is it just me, I’d be interested to know).
The backcover blurb says, “Narrated by Frank Flannigan, The Motel Life tells the story of how he and his brother Jerry Lee take to the road when bad luck catches up with them.” That’s a pretty fair description. Then, because this isn’t a first edition, the cover – front, back, inside and outside – is peppered with quotes and snatches from reviews. “A hugely compassionate, wildly original road movie of a novel…”, “courageous, powerful, wonderfully compassionate, this is a very fine novel”. Actually, I think they’ve gone overboard on the quotes. I agree with most of them, I just think, ‘All right already let the book speak for itself a bit’.
My subconscious did an excellent job because for me, books like this are perfect for times like this. Not that I want to wallow, but “plaintive ballads” of books provide me a way of giving into it all. Of letting it be. Of getting to the heart of things. Without wanting to get all overly-romantic on you-all, my mum was something of a Paul Kelly song. Complex and fascinating and strong and vulnerable and flawed. It’s what’s made me mad at her when I was fifteen and what makes me miss her now.
And it’s what made me love reading this book.
Plus, I like stories about vulnerable young men who make my heart ache (that’s inherited from my mother for sure). I like writers who make us think about the spaces in our relationships and what those spaces mean. I like page turners of books that make you beg of the characters, ‘Please don’t do that’. (Just now as I’m writing this, it occurs to me that’s what Vonnegut meant when he said “Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages” – though admittedly he was talking about short stories – but I’ve struggled to understand what he meant by that).
I was also reading this book in a way I’ve never read before and with a different awareness of writing than I’ve ever had. Because for the few days before we left on our holiday, I worked like the clappers to get the latest draft of my manuscript back to my editor. I’m at the fairly detailed editing stage, rather than the kind of structural things I’ve been doing until now. I am in no way comparing myself to any published writer, but I’m reading very carefully to see how experienced writers deal with different problems I know I’ve got.
It’s an exciting way to read.
For example, I was paying very close attention to the dialogue. I’ve got much more dialogue in my manuscript than I realised. Which is fine. As long as it’s good. And as long as it’s not punctuated with endless ‘stage directions’. Which mine was. So much biting of lips and flicking of hair. Oh, my. By the time I’d taken out all the flicks of the hair and the curled lips and the blinks of the eyes I’d lost about 4 000 words. Thank goodness.
Anyway, there’s lots of dialogue in The Motel Life and it’s good, and I see that it sits just nicely without endless decoration.
I think my writing style is what people often call ‘spare’. By which they mean (I assume) spare as opposed to ‘not baroque’ not spare as in leftover. So I was reading this book with a very strong awareness of that spare style – and I noticed that it has more dangers than I had realised. For example, “I turned on the radio, put a can of soup on the hot plate, and sat down at my table. I lit a candle I kept and ate”.
I reckon that last sentence is shit. You can love a book and still see that every now and then something doesn’t work. That sentence is clumsy and awkward, and made me stumble even though I was only reading to myself. But that made me think. Is it too pared back? Is it too spare?
Mostly though, as I was reading, I finally understood what a couple of people have told me over the last year (as they’ve been rejecting my new work). You can be a bit too enigmatic, leave too many spaces. You need to give the reader more. I wasn’t entirely sure about that, and I wasn’t sure what to do about it. But while I was reading The Motel Life I ached for more about the relationship between the brothers. Not much more. But more (oh. I think we’re back at that Vonnegut quote again). Just a childhood incident here or there. Just a bit more reflection on Frank’s part about Jerry Lee as a person.
And then of course I fell into a funk – oh god, he’s got the odd awkward sentence, but all of mine are shit, what made me think I could write blah blah blah.
But then, I would’ve taken another sip of tea and moved on. I can’t have dwelled on it too long, because my overall memory of this book – no, I should be more precise about that – I should say that my overall memory of the experience of reading this book – is a good one.
Good. What does that mean?
It means I was completely absorbed and fully alive and knowing that life is hard but good.
Although, if it was me, if I’d had the final say, I would’ve ended the story two sentences earlier. Which didn’t stop me going to the bookshop when we got home and buying Northline.
So, I was reading genevieve, who has been reading locus who was (or perhaps were), from what I gather, reading angela, who, has, in turn, been reading krissy who made me think that I think too much and write too little (and not to say that she thinks too little, just to say that her writing discipline inspired me to do more with my thoughts than just think them).
So, I started writing again. Just a little something while the boys watched ABC Kids.
So I was in my garrett, writing a new story that begins like this:
“If he asks, she will tell him she grew the flowers. In the garden bed behind the shed. She’d planted them in May, forgotten she’d even put them in.”
But it turns out the daylight robber I thought I could hear in the kitchen (below me) was a pigeon. And it turns out beagles are good at catching pigeons.
And the story is unlikely to be what I thought it would be when I began.