This week I’ve been going through my scene sheets and ‘writing scenes to order’ something I never usually do, following what I’ve written on the scene sheet. I’ve also been revising scenes I wrote a couple of years ago to slot them into place.
On Wednesday I worked on a scene from the beginning of my novel. I’ve noticed that the scene descriptions I’ve written mean I need to write or revise more than one scene, but that’s ok as long as the sequence is right I can still use them as checklists. (In other words, one scene in on a scene sheet, might mean three in reality).
I knew an engineer was coming to look at the washing machine on Wednesday – there’s washing piling up because it won’t work – which meant I had to buy the small boy some more school trousers. I managed to bunch my chores together, then do techy things on my website, to avoid being disturbed mid-chapter. I did my actual writing after lunch today, which provided me with some contrast.
Effectively there are four slots I can write in: early morning, morning, after lunch, after small boy’s bedtime. Slot one and four are usually mutually exclusive – i.e. if I get up at 5am or 6am to write I need to go to bed so can’t do the evening slot. I’ve done an early morning slot every day so far this week. And on Monday and Tuesday I wrote in the morning. But on Wednesday I wrote in the after lunch slot. I think I feel the impending school pick up more strongly in the afternoon – a deadline helps me to write but a deadline of only a few hours feels restrictive. That said, I did get more written than I thought I would.
Head still full of self-doubt, especially at night. I must remember to wind down a little more. (I also worked on techy stuff this week- sometimes while small boy was falling asleep – this knocked me out of kilter slightly. I was better at telling myself to shut down on Wednesday. Also I really need to exercise.)
We’ve been trying to grow sunflowers all summer, first outside, but they didn’t even sprout, then on the window ledge when two of them grew really tall but got eaten by snails as soon as we put them outside. Then another seedling in a pot sprouted (on the window ledge in the kitchen) unexpectedly. We nurtured it and put it outside a couple of days ago – this time out the front where there are fewer snails because of the paving stones.
My son and I were really pleased when a small flower started to bloom. After all, it is October. I put egg shells round it to stop any determined snails from climbing up there. Then I saw a whole patch of giant sunflowers growing in a garden a five-minute bus ride away from here. They looked better than the kind you can buy in a shop – huge open faces and leaves like hands.
Writing is a bit like growing those sunflowers, especially as I absolutely love sunflowers. I marvelled over Van Gogh’s paintings when I was a kid, I had them at my wedding, there’s a field of them growing near to where my dad is buried. I feel like I’m supposed to teach the small boy about cultivating and caring for plants too, and the natural cycle of birth, death and rebirth that is so obvious in plants (though we don’t always recognise it in ourselves).
So sunflowers are a big deal. Writing is a big deal but sometimes it feels like a struggle. I try stuff out but metaphorical snails form a psychic barrier and there’s no time to fix it or to think deeply about it. I re-realised today, actually, thinking about Cal Newport’s Deep Work, that thinking deeply is a privilege. I get to the point with my writing where I’ve protected it and nurtured it and put egg shells around it and I get a flower – and it’s not a big smiling sunflower face, but it’s still a flower. Then, of course, other people have done bigger and better things – grown bigger and bolder sunflowers – and I feel deflated.
Who knows? Maybe they used snail killer. Maybe they had all the time in the world to spend in the garden. Maybe they had been practicing at sunflower growing since they were small. The small boy did two things to make things better. Told me never to give up writing because he liked listening to me and watching me do it (the study is in the spare room next to his bedroom) and was immensely proud of the small sunflower we managed to grow, and wanted his photo taken with it.