An expensive life

The more I think about my circumstances, the more I am unnerved by how much they're costing me.

Two perspectives are obvious: the personal and the financial. How much is living with mental and physical illness really costing me? How much is it costing the services that support me?

On a personal level, the cost is enormous. Apart from missing out on all the things that a healthy individual my age would be engaging in today, like socialising and going to the gym, the deeper deficit comes in forms of things that are mostly undetected: my crippled self-esteem, the lack of motivation, bouts of confusion; the long-term effect of medication on my organs, the emotional damage that comes when another treatment / doctor / approach fails to deliver.

That's a mere handful which can be plucked from the pile. Other things too, things that we all take for granted, are missing. Smiling, for example. Feeling happy. Even when I do manage to muster a laugh or a grin from the depths, it's underpinned by the sensation that it's not the done thing – I feel like an outsider for expressing a positive emotion through muscular gestures in my face. Sometimes it's because I don't believe I should be smiling but mostly it's because there's more to be anxious, worried and depressed about.

My favourite 'positive thinking' fact that's been slung at me over the years is:

“You know, it takes more muscles to frown than it does to smile.”

Yes well, my face gets a better work-out than yours. And there's another few pennies thrown out: optimism, empathy and gratitude. And these pennies all add up in the end.

I recently did a quick psychology measurement scale to give a general idea of how much stress I experience in my life and thus how susceptible I am to potentially developing chronic illness. A bit of a no-brainer considering I already live with chronic health problems but I took it anyway, being geared toward bettering myself.

After tallying everything up, my score came out at a respectable 1,198 points. Then I read what that number meant and almost lost control of my bladder, partly from panic but mostly from amusement: scores over 300 are a general indication that the individual will probably develop some form of chronic illness in their lifetime.

Well blow me down. And the scale whilst you're at it.

It turns out that life experiences are stackable, which accounts for my high ( LOL, high) total. I'm pretty much up to my eyeballs in Stress Debt, which makes my overdraft look like a fluffy, goose down duvet. I'm not yet thirty – what is the interest on all of this? What is this going to continue to cost me and are the bailiffs going to come round any time soon?

I expected this revelation to cause me even more problems but it's done the opposite. Like my Mum who quit smoking immediately after her first major heart attack (she wasn't much older than me), I've taken hold of the situation and started rethinking how I live, breathe, eat, walk, talk and think.

Change comes with a price but if it means I can settle some of these massive personal debts, I'm willing to spend a bit to save a lot. A lot being my life.

Stress and all of its associated diseases, kill.

On a strictly financial front, the cost of my being in such a mess is just as impressive. I'm not about to present a firm, sociological dissection of my care, treatment and support but instead, state a few realities and ask some questions about them. I'll start with something basic.

Drugs

In an unfortunate twist, I take minimal medication because I can't tolerate many of the options available on the NHS. My most recent foray into chemical rejection has left me heart-broken; an anti-inflammatory finally helps me to feel a bit more human but causes undesirable complications, meaning I have to stop taking them and go back to being in constant pain.

Bummer.

I hardly made a dent in the prescription meaning that at least three weeks of pills are now to be returned to the pharmacist and destroyed. What a waste. Although my other meds are basic, they still cost a bundle to have them prescribed and I take them every day. I renew my prescription every three to four weeks out of necessity.

I wonder how much money it takes to fund such a basic set of pills and then how much more is thrown away when left-overs have to be destroyed because they're not suitable for me. How much money could be saved if:

• My doctors made a conscious effort to make sure drugs they prescribe me won't destroy my innards or send me off on a psychotic trip. Okay so they'd have to spend more time getting to know me and reading my notes (doing their job?) but those are short-term chips compared to the long-term mess of dicking around;
• More research was done see which chemical-based treatments actually work.
  

Appointments

Every time I go to my GP or to see consultants, they get paid. I don't need to mention the scandals surrounding pay, do I? No? Fabulous.

When I do pay a visit to these people, and it's a regular thing, not a lot happens. There are no real developments, just the same old questions and techniques born from a lack of medical understanding and, I sense, a certain degree of unwillingness to take on board the criteria of another impossible disease.

Cancer used to be impossible. Now it's getting its arse kicked.

Hospital appointments get me thinking about how much time, money and resources would be saved if the doctors I saw went just that little bit further in trying to get to the bottom of my conditions. Late last year, one doctor did just that and I got some results which was fantastic until another doctor shrugged the new findings off as 'marginal' and sent me home in a bubbling pot of misery and pain.

Since then, I've requested a second opinion because I don't believe that dismissive consultant was right to leave me 'as is' and wait for things to develop beyond their criteria of what they clinically believe to be significant. I'm talking about a number here. What they're missing out in their opinions is my quality of life, the test results that all support one another and my roaring family medical history.

If I were a doctor presented with a case identical to the one I, as a patient, am facing now, I would throw the 'criteria book' out of the window and tend to the patient. Not every patient needs the same level of care and that's my point. Averages have turned specialist consultants into glorified GPs who do little more than order blood tests, recommend more drugs and then send you home.

Tests and Treatment

I lost count of how many blood tests I had last year. So far in 2013, I've had a routine check of the standard stuff: cholesterol, vitamin levels, liver function, and a specialised request to check my rheumatoid factor and for any rogue anti-bodies. I have these things checked every four to six months because things need to be observed. I have an illness of some description, after all.

After giving what I imagine to be nearly a pint of blood for such tests in 2012, I started pushing for more proficient investigations and got them. That's how I found out my thyroid gland is doing fine – an excellent thing to eliminate in the game of 'Guess the Mystery Illness'. At the same time, I discovered something that would have remained buried had it not been for my insistence that they check.

When you have a condition that can't be directly diagnosed, you do things in reverse. You make sure all other systems are functioning before sliding into acceptance. It'd be stupid not to but that's what my doctors have so far done with me.

It's only down to meeting an excellent GP who listens, and pushing consultants to their patient etiquette limit, that I've been able to get specific areas of enquiry addressed. How much have these hospitals wasted on pointless tests when they should have been honing in on trace abnormalities?

Yes, it must have cost a fortune to have an isotope scan on my thyroid but it doesn't matter; I have a prolific history of it in my family and to have found no hint of disease in that area is a blessing. A potential candidate for my trashed health has been eliminated and psychologically, I have been lifted from the folds of worry. Debt = settled.

That's only one example of the numerous avenues I'm exploring in order to find out what is going on with me. It could be that I have all of these other tests done and they still find nothing, but I'd rather just do it and know that my heart has no defects or blockages (again, this sort of problem is a good friend of my family. A lover, in fact) and be certain that I'm not walking around with a treatable condition that could be prevented from doing even more harm the older I become.

As for treatment, it's hard to see where to turn when you don't know what's wrong with you, which is why proper investigation is so important and why doctors shouldn't be so dismissive of approaches that fall outside of a fringe department, the ones specifically designed to send people like me to when a doctor's face hits a brick wall e.g. pain management clinics.

I had a physiotherapist declare outright that no amount of massage therapy or acupuncture will help with my lower back problem, or any of my other conditions. I didn't get a say in that announcement which was a shame because had they let me, I would have explained that:

• Previous acupuncture therapy had not only helped my bad back, it had also eased the pain I was experiencing throughout my body and induced positive outcomes with my mental health. My nerves had been soothed, my muscles relaxed and my depression alleviated. It wasn't a cure and it didn't happen overnight (it took around four session until I noticed how well it was working) but it was the best two months of treatment that I had ever experienced. It still is.
  
• Deep-tissue and muscle massage has been shown to help reduce pain, inflammation and and stress in a variety of illness. It's particularly promising in my own conditions.
  

I state again that alternatives to drugs and clinics are not cures. What they are however, are a different attitude toward chronic illness. They manage conditions instead if dumping them in the corner until the next appointment comes round. I think that, despite being sniffed at still, these forms of treatment, at the very least, freeze the interest on the growing debt of failed medical care.

I realise that I've given less attention to the personal costs of living with chronic mental and physical health problems. There are some things that I don't want to bring into the light just yet, perhaps because I'm ashamed or because I'm frightened of what they entail. I'm not ready to explore the price tags that are tied to all aspects of my life.

Though I'm inclined to dismiss my inner Drama Llama, I have to acknowledge the creeping dread that this kind of oblivious secrecy produces: not knowing who you are and what little buttons that, when pushed, set you off, is a state of being that all of us should be weary of: ignorance is bliss. So is sleep until carbon monoxide comes into the equation.

If I've decided anything after thinking about all of this, and more, it's that I'm going to make sure that I'm not side-lined any more. Speculation aside, I am living with chronic illnesses and they are preventing from living a fulfilled, purposeful and productive life. They are degrading me both mentally and physically. I may not be dying but I'm not exactly living and life is about living, or so I believe.

I'm going to invest in my future. I'm going to refuse compromise and 'come back in six months' in favour of commitment and 'do your job right'. Professional will baulk at me, some will probably tell me I'm being paranoid, but they're not the ones who have to pay for all of this in the end.

I am.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Creativity for the Agoraphobiac: Gardening

I’ve decided to go with something a bit more challenging for the next part of this series. The last article on knitting was a bit of a ‘get out of jail free’ card for all of us.

So what makes this one so tough? You have to go out. Amidst people.

As with the last post, I’m not going to go into the technicalities of the craft. Trust me, I’m not a guru gardener; I’ve killed (without intention) more plants than I can count.

But the rewards from this activity are numerous and better than, in my totally unprofessional opinion, any group therapy with bells on.

What I’ll be doing, as with the knitting article, is explaining why gardening is so important to me and how it could become a life-saver for you. And the planet.

You don’t have to be an Agoraphobiac or a tree-hugged by the way. Neither do you have to have hectares of land for wild deer to frolic across.

A concrete box, surrounded by brick walls and urban noise can become a haven for shadow loving plants. Dress it up with some outdoor lighting (candles, string lights, solar lamps) and there you have it.

How about a traditional six foot stretch backing onto a railway line? It needn’t be all lawn. Veg and flowers will prosper in the right conditions.

I can hazard a guess that some of you may live in a flat; get hanging out of that window (safely please…) and install a good-sized window box.

The best bit though is that gardening needn’t be restricted to out doors. I have a growing collection of plants that I tend to indoors. Admittedly plants that don’t always need a lot of attention due to my forgetfulness, but plants nonetheless.

This is one of my Phalaenopsis orchids. They grow happily indoors as long as they’re kept out of direct sunlight and watered properly. A bit like me.

You can pick these up at pretty much any supermarket now but I’d recommend heading to a decent garden centre. If there’s a Dobbies close by, I’d recommend them. And no I’m not being paid to say that or getting any freebies. The place is just awesome and worth the effort/terror of stepping out your front door. Which brings me to the pep-talk.

This is not an easy task. By all means, you could order bulbs and seeds from the Internet the same way you could yarn, but I’d like to show that by pushing your boundaries by the slightest amount, you can stop your fears from ruling your life and create a space to be proud of, even if it’s just a flower in a pot on your desk.

Rules. With this task there must be rules.

• Don’t do it alone. Garden centres, particulary at this time of year, are nightmares incarnate. There are people and kids everywhere, all scurrying about and cramping up the joint so the last thing you want is to be in that situation on your own. Take a trusted friend of family member. I go with my Dad.
• Make a trip out of it. Looking for plants and materials like soil, wood, feed and chippings (to help prevent soil dehydration) isn’t a death sentence; it’s a chance for you to take control and find pleasure in a new habit. One of my favourite things to do when I go with my Dad to Dobbies is to seek out lavender or other rich-smelling plants, bury my face in them and take as many deep breaths as I can before he says that people are staring.
• Plan ahead. I can’t stress this enough because of the stress. Don’t go on a whim and don’t go when you’re stone broke. You need good health, a good frame of mind and a good bank balance if you’re going to do this. Planning also allows you to think about what to do in the event that you start to feel uncomfortable or freak-out. Neglecting planning will lead to a negative experience which means you’re less likely to do it again.

So why gardening? What makes it indispensable to me? I’ve grown up in and around greenery, trees and flowers. These places were a haven of peace and solitude for me, just what I needed when I felt the need to escape coming on. The sanctauray of the garden is more important for me now than it ever has been.

Gardens come with two sides to them, forming a paradox. They force me to go out and be social but then they draw me in and shut me off from the rest of the world.

When I’m done with the hustle of the over-populated garden centre, I return home and rest for a while. Maybe a day or two. Then I turn my attention to the plants themselves; I plan how and where I’m going to put them, prepare the soil so that their roots have a good place to start their new life. I ready the watering can with warm water. Yes – warm water. It’s better for the plant, particularly seedlings, as it’s not as shocking as cold water. You wouldn’t jump into a freezing shower, would you?

When everything is ready, I tease the plants from their plastic containers and loosen their roots. This is beneficial for the both of us.

Loosening roots, particularly if there are masses of them, gives the plant space to breathe in its new home whilst allowing me to subconsciously untangle any stress that’s under my skin.

Contact with soil makes us happy. Check out that link and see what it says about the benefits of getting your hands dirty in the garden,

It’s not the only source which plugs (if you’re already a keen, green-fingered fool, you’ll get that joke) the benefits of creating and maintaining green spaces. Go ahead and google ‘benefits of gardening’ and you’ll be inundated with thousands of results which all say pretty much the same thing: gardening is good for you.

It helps lift depression, gives your body a work-out and releases stress.

It doesn’t matter how much you do in my mind. I recently planted a blue daisy-like plant called ‘Felicia’ in some old pots I found in the churned mud of the riverside where I live.

The plant was split into three to accomodate the size of the pots and to leave part of it to place in one of the boxes outside. Not bad for £1.25.

I’m at my happiest when I’m around plants. I can be the biggest ball of stress going and all it will take is fifteen minutes with some soil and some seeds to transform me into a different person. A calmer person, a softer being.

You can be as committed as you want to this activity; visit the garden centre once a month, twice a year if you like. Have as few or as many plants, trees, flowers, vegetables, fruits as you like but keep in mind that they will need your attention and care.

I’m deciding whether or not to grow tomatoes and cucumber again this year because I have already have a fair bit on the go: herbs, carrots, beetroot. At the moment, I’m not sure I could manage any more along with my non-eating plants. Gardening is as much about responsibility as it is pleasure. You have to take care of yourself and your green friends or both of you will suffer if you go over the top.

Speaking of responsibility, it’s down to us to do something about the problems that our only home in the entire universe, faces.

Creating green spaces with bee and butterfly friendly flowers is one of the easiest and happiest ways to do this. Imagine if everyone gardened, everywhere, anywhere. What would our world look like? How would people feel with soil under their fingers?

Now, enough of my hippy dreams. You need resources! I haven’t given you much in the way of gardening tips but I can show you where to find some.

Alys Fowler has to be my favourite gardener because she practices something called permaculture: the art of throwing out formalities and inviting in a smorgasbord of sustainable methods of planting that encourages a self-sustaining Eco-system.

Her books aren’t just how-to guides; they’re a collection on independence, filled with ideas on how to recycle bits of scrap, go skip-diving for materials (without upsetting anyone), how to use the world around you to nurture your garden, and what to do with the things you grow: jams, cakes, soups, pickles. Yum.

You can breathe a sigh of relief because you don’t have to go to a bookstore to get them, or any other book on gardening, unless you want to of course. I recommend taking a look on, wait for it, eBay and AbeBooks not just for Alys Fowler but pretty much any gardening book. I have several volumes that I’ve found over the Internet that are no longer in print but offer some timeless and excellent advice on how best to tend to your plants, what pests and diseases to watch for and how to treat them, and also design advice if you’re looking for a particular theme.

You can also order plants online if you’re not feeling ready for the garden centre just yet, but you can also find particular plants that you may not be able to get so easily, like my Witch Hazel on the left.

I got this from an online stockists last year for £15 which is a bargain considering it was out of season and the same plant would have probably cost twice as much at a specialist centre. Plus I didn’t have to go out.

What arrived a week later from Holland was a stick in a box. I soaked the roots, talked to it as I prepared its pot. Yes, I spoke to a stick. Talking to plants is very therapeutic for speaker and plant alike; the plant listens and the speaker gives carbon dioxide in return. If you believe in that of course.

The Witch Hazel was planted in mid October and remained ‘dead’. I watered it, spoke to it, even gave it warm herbal tea. It broke my heart a bit. Then in January, it blossomed. Bright red flowers sprouted all over the stick, lasted through until March and then died off. I thought I’d killed it until the leaves came.

This might seem a bit of an irrelevant anecdote, but it all adds to my belief that gardening is one of the best things an Agoraphobiac can do. When people aren’t your cup of tea, plants can be.

They’re beautiful, good for you and the planet, and prevent the growing isolation caused by The Fear. It prevents it because every time you look at you garden, your chilli plant on the kitchen side, your rock garden trying to establish itself, you’re looking at one of your biggest achievements: creation brought about by attention, dedication and love.

And this is what folk who are scared of the big wide world need themselves, right?

If you’re one for Karma, sending out the goodness you need will bring it back to you. Gardening is a great thing and can be done anywhere. You never know, you might even grow a few human friendships at the same time.

Just a quick note: All of the photos featured in this blog have been captured by yours truly. Apt considering I’ll be exploring photography next time.

If you use any of my photos in your own blog or link to them, I’d really appreciate it if you stated that they’re my work. Thanks very much!

Into the Deep

I have a white bar stool, rustic in style, and a bit rickety, which I picked up for free outside someone’s bungalow. I was on the way home from an appointment and as soon as I saw it, I knew it was meant to come home with me.

It sits beside my bed, acting as a seat when I’m contemplating my writing board, and as a small desk for me to sit at whilst perched on the edge of my bed as I type my novel. A space perfectly positioned in front of the writing board, my back to all electronic temptations, and the lure of books for research in the peripherals of my vision.

I’m thinking of fixing a board on the foot rests so I can place a beverage on it.

Why the importance of a stool? It’s one of the few things keeping me real at the moment, in the excellent company of the guttural night-stock scented Welsh of Cerys Matthews and the soft, bobbled warmth of one of my favourite jumpers.

A sort of silence, a familiarity as I come to terms with my lowest ebb in months. No use in fighting it because that leads to violence. Sink into it and find that place which lets you ply your craft in peace amidst the strange comforts of insignificant items; stools, bare feet, lullabies, layered clothing, lack of appetite.

But still an absurd yet pleasurable thrill to go on because of these things.

Creativity for the Agoraphobiac: Knitting

Knitting. I love it. My Mum used to sit all day and night, glued to the TV or the phone, weaving any number of blankets and baby garments without looking at what her hands were doing. She’d occasionally refer to the pattern she was following but otherwise, what she did was sorcery.

I tried and failed as a kid. Mum didn’t have the patience or time to teach me properly.

Two decades later I read Our Tragic Universe by Scarlett Thomas and become bewitched by that same sorcery. I owe a lot to this book for seducing me with the prospect of pulling off one of the most difficult garments to knit: socks.

I felt that if Meg, our heroine doomed to failure and an endless universe, could apply herself to something as complicated as knitting with four needles, in rounds, and thus creating socks you just can’t find anywhere in our consumerist society, I could bloody well do it too.

And I did.

But not before learning the basics.

I’m not going to spend my time here trying to explain how to knit but am instead going to provide you with resources to set you on your way to creative freedom. First of all though, I’d like to describe what knitting has come to mean to me, and describe what I’ve accomplished through learning this skill.

As I said, Scarlett Thomas gave me the spark. I went out, purchased some yarn that I liked the look of, a set of 5mm bamboo needles and used the Internet to learn the basics of casting on, making knit stitches and purl stitches.

I was clueless. The first thing I knitted was a case for my Kindle, complete with a large fold-over flap and pocket, and lovely wooden buttons. I knitted it way too big, dropped stitches, creating the odd hole in the final product, but when it was finished and stitched up, I couldn’t have been happier.

This sleeve has since become the place where my iPad lives when I pack it away.

My first project had released me from a saturated accessories market, taught me the basics of a valuable skill, helped me express my creativity, kept me occupied when I was feeling low, and had most importantly, opened up the path to knitworking: connecting with other knitters and those who appreciate the craft.

Since that first, imperfect Kindle case, I’ve knitted a multipurpose shawl, scarves, hand warmers, a bra (yes, a bra!), a jumper (which took a month to complete),and to my complete satisfaction, socks.

My first pair were well made but a disaster size-wize; they were meant to fit my size seven feet but ended up being more suitable for someone with size ten feet. I quickly learnt that needle size and yarn weight is very important: always check your yarn for what size needles you need and then use them.

What was so important about my first pair of socks is that I knitted them over my first Christmas alone. I was to scared to leave my home with my Dad to visit my family in the west of the UK, so I had the house to myself for a few days.

Great right? Almost.

I needed something to distract me from the fear of being isolated for three days, so knitting socks to carols on Classic FM became my saving grace. They’ve since become lovingly known as Troll Socks because of how huge they are.

Since then, I’ve gone on to knit several more pairs for friends but mostly for myself because they make me feel secure and they give me something to do when I’m down in the dumps or need my manic mind distracting for several hours.

Knitted for a friend

Knitted for me: Slouchy Socks of Awesome Mark II

So for me, to round up (you’ll eventually get this terrible joke if you’re not already a knitter), the art of knitting is a way to focus my mind, express myself, liberate my tastes, encourage my creativity, and make things for people I love.

Knitting need not be solitary; stitch and bitch groups are on the increase and they’re a mine of knowledge because the odds are, most of the people in the group will be Grandmasters of the Needles.

I’ve personally chosen not to attend such groups but if you’re feeling bold, go for it. You’ve everything to gain and knitting is such a useful skill to have under your belt.

If you’re not in to big social groups, you could buddy up with a friend and teach one another, spreading the yarn-love far and wide. And even when that’s too much, there are online communities.

Ravelry.com is an amazing site where you can find plenty of patterns and resources to help you on your way. You can take on projects, updating your progress for people to see, and join groups in their efforts to create innovative items that go beyond dodgy jumpers, though dodgy jumpers are back in fashion courtesy of Sarah Lund.

As for books, I highly recommend buying The Ultimate Knitting Bible to get you started.

This book explains all of the basics with clear pictures and references and I’ve found it to be indispensable; I refer to it every time I need to learn a new skill or if I’ve forgotten methods I’ve not used in a while.

I’d also recommend taking full advantage of YouTube alongside this book, purely because seeing someone cast on i.e. create the first row of stitches from which all others will follow, can give you the guidance and confidence that the book might not be able to. For example, I used YouTube to help me wrap my brain around creating stitches i.e. increasing, because the pictures weren’t clear enough for me.

Now, where to get your kit from. Don’t be afraid of secondhand stores, gloomy looking stationey-come-post offices for needles and yarn; if you’re a beginner, you pick up some good deals without breaking the bank and if you decide knitting isn’t for you, you’ve not just spent a wad of cash on something you’re never going to use again.

But wait. That involves going out…

But wait again; the Internet! eBay is a fantastic place to find yarns and needles for good prices and you can often pick up bulk yarn supplies for a lot less than buying from a store.

Two websites that I would recommend for all knitting supplies are McA Direct and Deramores.

I’ve spent many happy hours gawking at all the pretty yarns and seeing as I’ve gone pro in the sock department, I’ve invested in these fine Symfonie Needles, an investment that I am yet to regret in spite of their price.

So there you have it. Even if you think you’ll never get the hang of it, still give it a bash. Start with a basic item like a scarf and go on from there. An entire world of creative possibility is open to you, along with a warm and welcoming community , and you don’t have to go out to do it.

But the best thing about knitting is that it might just give you the courage to take the next step, visit a local craft shop, pick an attractive yarn, and strike up a conversation with a fellow knitter.

My life is richer for having knitted.

With good intentions…

I set myself far too many tasks last week. Or was it this week? I forget. Anyhow! I made a promise in an earlier post to write a series on Creativity for the Agoraphobiac, that is, anyone who struggles with going out and being around a lot of people.

As I explained, this condition is a nightmare to live with but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the activites that more socially able people enjoy.

I’ve chosen a selection of creative activites to write about in the coming weeks, activities that I find fun, educational and theraputic. The best thing is of course, you can do all of these things within the safety of your own haven and invite close friends to join you if you’re feeling sociable.

Each post will focus on one of the following and (hopefully) provide my own examples and wisdom for you to draw on:

• Knitting
• Photography
• Drawing / sketching
• Cooking / baking
• Gardening
• Letter writing

I think this is a fair list for now but it may be added to in the future. Look out for the first installment, Creativity for the Agoraphobiac: Knitting, in the next couple of weeks.

Forgive me for making you all wait so long if you’ve been hanging around for these posts; I’m not feeling my best at the moment. I’ll do what I can, a little at a time, as anyone should when they’re under the weather.

The Big Avoidance

Sometimes I avoid things because I don’t want to face/do/experience/deal with them.

Other times I avoid things because I’m acute and aware of everything I have to do, confident in my movements.

It’s not really avoidance in this case; it’s arrogance.

Not the nasty type of arrogance though, but the innocent type that you allow yourself, that small space where you remove yourself and observe, with a sincere and smug smile, that for this moment in your life, you’re managing.

Today I’m touching everything.

A word that sticks: glacial. Reminds me of Fox’s Glacier Mints. Small, translucent blue cubes.

My world is a small, translucent blue cube that I can suck and roll about in my mouth for as long as I like, or turn it to shards in one bite. Look into it. What I see and what you see will be very different things.

Until later.

 

 

You better bring your own sun…

You can’t be ‘on’ all the time. There’s a reason we turn lights off, and not just to stop them from burning out before their time; switching off reveals everything that is smothered.

I think we can officially declare my ‘post-a-week’ promise  a failure, but I’m not upset because I think I’ve done significantly better than 2010. And I’m still working through my list of things to do during 2011.

Allowing myself to become dormant, to let the shadows fall on me for the past two weeks, has given me a lot of room to think. I can’t think like this when I’m in the thick of things, I need a bit of introversion to tease circumstance apart. So with a retreat, a sleight of hand, I’ve turned my face away and discovered.

30% interaction, 70% isolation. Nice round numbers that work for me but probably mean very little.

It’s not personal when I shut down.

 

Things to do when you’re trying to avoid writing

• Constantly pace the room
• Think about what you’re going to write, but don’t write a word of it
• Draw it instead
• Contemplate your diction
• Ruminate over how you divide and construct your paragraphs
• Plan dinners days/weeks/months in advance
• Write lists
• Frequently check your emails, re-reading the ones you’ve read ten times already
• Try out new hair styles
• File your nails to perfection – hands and feet
• Play with your pet. If you don’t have one, go out and acquire one then play with it when you get home
• Create fantasies of your perfect life/love/job/home
• Confront your theoretical problems and live them
• Daydream about later chapters
• Invite your characters over for tea and see if they respond
• If they do, don’t be tight; get the good tea out
• Let your character dominate the conversation and listen to what they have to say
• Watch their body language
• Learn from them
• Process your plot in your mind, over and over, until you’ve perfected complete sections of drama/dialogue
• Observe time, fastidiously, counting down the minutes until you can eat your next meal
• Read. Anything. Pick up the biggest novel you can find and read it
• Read it with a dictionary by your side
• Be patient

Guess who forgot to put in a title…

Ah, overshot this one by a few days but forgive me because I’ve had one of those mind-altering, snotacular colds that put you in bed for days. And anyway, you got two in the space of a week so ner.

Today’s festivities!

Disease has a way of making me lose focus so as you can imagine, everything I had planned for the past week has been replaced by a waste basket full of sneezed-in-to tissues. But now I’m feeling better and I’m taking advantage of this lack of direction because when you’re standing in the middle of a disaster, you can see everything in detail. It’s got me thinking.

I’ve been making the novel too complicated and when things start to get sticky in my writing, they also start to become implausible. With people vanishing and origins being thrown out of sync, it’s no wonder I can’t finish the first chapter. Reading shouldn’t be easy but it shouldn’t be soul-destroying either.

I’m now trying to reform the plot so it’s simple, whilst searching the top cupboard of my brain for an important answer to an essential question: what am I exploring in this novel?

I’m not sure (lie). I can’t make it out in all the mess of ideas (another lie). I don’t understand it (blah blah blah).

In truth: I’m exploring the absence of a presence.

The thing I’m unsure about is what this means and that’s an uncomfortable thought because it carries a hint of irony in it – that anything means anything. Of course it does! But only because we layer meaning over things. The idea that there’s an inherent meaning to anything is problematic. Pick an object, an emotion, a situation – whatever you want – and then open it up. Go on, don’t be shy! Right open. Now have a good look at it and tell me that the thing you’ve chosen has one definitive meaning. It doesn’t, does it?

Of course this is a bit of a farce because you’ll get the gurus (authority) who say (kinda snobbish in my head): yes yes, we’re all multiple and it’s all quite normal to be that way; there are many things but they all essentially boil down to one thing…

And then I lose interest because they’re doing it again, drawing all the multiplicity into a single point, a bit like this sentence just has. I’m stumped by this point too.

It’s too easy to say that nothing has a presence and it’s too convenient to say we’ll change it when we need to because presence never sticks around longe enough for us to a) recognise it and b) think about changing it.

This is why I need to keep it simple. For some reason my fingers started typing ‘complicated’ when my head was saying ‘simple’. There’s a conflict going on in my head and at the moment, there’s nothing I can do about it. Asides from stop trying so hard and let it go.

The Plan

1. Finish chapter one and polish it so that the narrative makes sense
2. Begin chapter two so that Faith finds herself in a new situation and so that I stop rotting in my own boredom
3. Gently, gently, contemplate what it would mean to explore absence (TRACE) within the text itself and how this could be done
4. Generate a lose and simple plot for the whole novel
5. Write a synopsis based on this new plot.

There, simple. Over-and-out.

Oops

We all knew it’d happen. I’m still trying to figure out the link between ‘loss-of-interest’ and ‘forgetting’ but let’s not make this too complicated because it can’t be any simpler than this: I almost screwed up on my ‘one new post a week’ promise I made at the start of the year. I think I’m in time to catch the last moments of a week, aren’t I?

What matters is that I’m here now. Actually what matters is that I have something to say, should have something to say, and I think I do. Something about being dissatisfied with what I’m doing at the moment, that is, trying to write the first chapter of this novel. Again.

I changed a bunch of things; I’ve figured out some decent imagery instead of groping at bored clichés and hoping they’d work for me, and I’ve started the process of letting my main character be herself (which is in part me but tenfold) and call the shots when it comes to her own details.

The plot has changed again but has simplified which I’m pleased about because it was all getting out-of-hand and becoming a farce rather than a genuine exploration of an existence that in part seems alien to me but one that I wish would cave in on itself so that I can experience it fully and then find a way out of. Because escape is so much easier to practice when there are gaping holes.

Things are working out in a haphazard way and I’m guessing that this is okay as long as I produce something (which I am) so why the dissatisfaction? I’m going over the same old stuff again and again, trying to reshape it when I’m close to scrapping the whole lot and starting again. I hear this is common practice but I’m whining about it because

1. I don’t have the luxury of time; this needs to be completed soon or I fail the module
2. I’m getting restless; I want to move on and explore other chapters
3. Everything I’m writing is hollow; the inner critic is trashing everything I do and this isn’t helped by the fact that I keep reading exquisite novels by published authors including Bret Easton-Ellis (Lunar Park), Scarlett Thomas (PopCo), and Amy Sackville (The Still Point), my most recent expedition into the land of ‘They’re So Much Better Than Me’.
4. I’m discovering huge gaps in my knowledge and worse, my memory. There’s a residue of all the things I should know and a bunch of faint memories where I was learning these things but apart from the occasional scrap of detail that arrives as an epiphany, there’s not much going on upstairs. I learn and then forget.

The real plus out of all this is that my notebook for the project is intense and detailed. I can trace (hehe) how everything has been changing from those weird seed moments right to trying to figure out the formation of a family tree where fathers and mothers are really aunts and uncles.

I think I’ll take a risk today and begin the novel again. I’ll aim to reach 5,000 words by 6pm. I can only gain. Even if I don’t use it as the opener, I’ll have plenty of new material to work and adjust the original chapter with.

But first, lunch.

Until next week (if I remember).