Monday 6 March 2017

Weathering









Don't fret, I told myself as I loaded up some photos from my phone (big camera is at the repair man). It's like riding a bike. It'll all start to flow, and before you know it you'll have written your first post proper. I mean, how hard can it be?

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Turns out, quite hard. I loaded the photos above at the end of last week. I thought I'd write one of those catch up posts. Then I thought that maybe I'd do a 1'0 Random Things.' To get me back in the game as it were. If you're like me (and if so, my condolences) you have ideas popping into your head all the time, and it can get terribly arduous trying to pin them down into some kind of coherant whole. Things like plots, characters, story ideas, dialogue, internal banter, fantastic endings, great titles, genius twists and turns, a clever turn of phrase, side splittingly funny asides, tragic prose worthy of a Bronte. And all the rest.

I never have pen and paper to hand either. I really should carry a notebook around with me at all times. These snippets, these starts of stories remain out of reach and float away into the ether. I'm reminded of the preface to Garrison Keillor's 'Lake Wobegon Days,' when he loses a couple of stories on a train journey. Try as he might, he can't remember them, and so can't recreate them. By the end of his train journey he feels as if he's lost some great "landmark of American prose." It's like losing something that was never lost in the first place. And it's so terribly frustrating.

In my mind's eye, I'm sat in a cafe with a coffee and my pad and pen. I sit there all day scribbling away, or watching the world go by. The owners know me. They know just how I like my tea. They know that I'm partial to a bit of carrot cake on a Tuesday. I always get a window seat. I'm never shoved in the back of the establishment. And it's there that I write my grand opus. Or perhaps I'm sat at a desk in a room in my house, writing into the wee hours. Or the library. One of those gorgeous Victorian ones, like the Central Library in Bristol. Or The Brotherton at Leeds University. I'll be researching my ass off, surrounded by tottering volumes of obscure works of prose.

It seems that I get carried away with the romance of writing, but not the actual graft of it. Because I would imagine that for people like Sarah Grace Perry or Nina Stibbe or Barbara Kingsolver or Iris Murdoch or Margaret Atwood or George Eliot or Jane Austen or Rachel Joyce it is graft. It is lines crossed through pages of work. It is stop and start again. It is all chewed pencil ends and writers block. It is wearing your heart on your sleeve and putting yourself under the microscope of literary scrutiny. It must be terrifying.

Where was I?


Thank you for your open arms of welcoming me back. You are all so very lovely. I raise my mug of builder's tea to each and every one of you!


Leanne xx





22 comments:

  1. I've missed your sea pictures. And your prose too, of course xx

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  2. I am so pleased you are back. Love your honesty and your writing. I am very occasional blogger these days but I love to read others and you are one of my favourite bloggers.

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  3. I am always fascinated to read about how writers write, and so often it is the most unexciting, diligent kind of discipline; turn up and sit at the computer every day from 9-6, then go downstairs. I'd be hopeless. I'm so distractable, I'd be forever making tea and checking my phone, putting a wash on. The fact that you turned up here and wrote something says a lot, don't you think? You could try posting something daily, just a paragraph and photo. I sometimes feel instagram replaced our more regular, almost daily blogging, of old. Mainly because it's so much quicker. But it's so good to see you back here with your warmth and wit. :-)

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  4. Aah that's more like it. The kind of post I would love to write but don't have your skill. A perfect return...keep them coming, wherever you write them. Beautiful photos by the way. B xx

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  5. I could picture you in any one of those settings writing your heart out. I read tons of books and think I could and should write, then I read someone like Iris Murdoch and realize that I could never write like that, and I so wish I could, even if I wrote for hours each day. Your writing always draws me in, please keep going.

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  6. Beautiful photos: you have a real eye for the unusual approach. And your words are flowing just as we like them. I'd love to spend all day in a coffee shop, scribbling away but would consume vast, vast quantities of cake in the process! Now that's a scary thought! (How's the sugar-free living going??) X

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  7. I have missed your lovely sea photos - Olly's hair is looking darker in the 2nd one or maybe it's just the light. I think you could probably write anywhere sweetie, although I'm sure that tea and carrot cake would oil the cogs nicely! xx

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  8. I always enjoy your blog, and I loved reading your words today. At some point in my life I envisioned myself writing best sellers on a beach in Greece. There's a piece in the Guardian on writing -- its by George Saunders and its title is something like what writers do when they write I think you would enjoy it. Jean/Winnipeg

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  9. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/mar/04/what-writers-really-do-when-they-write
    Here it is. Jean

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  10. Aah, a post from Leanne, what a treat. I know exactly what you mean about the ideas, I have all sorts all the time, except when I sit down in front of my laptop they have all completely evaporated. We need notebooks! Get one, get one now. Put it in your bag. I shall do the same.

    I know what you mean about the graft of writing. I think that's why people who have done non-fiction writing as a job do well, because they have the discipline to just sit down and write anyway, even if they're not feeling it. They have to get X number of words done, come hell or high water. Like you, I have happy imaginative places where I will be writing away quite beautifully. In reality it's the dining table, not even a desk of my own. And someone ate toast over my laptop yesterday and now the full-stop isn't working properly so that has stymied me as well. Right, go and get that notebook now. CJ xx

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  11. Love the image of you writing in a cafe, watching the world go by. You have a great gift, your prose is beautiful whatever you choose to write. xx

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  12. Writing in a cafe sounds all romantic. Slightly fogged up windows. The smell of tea/coffee. Lots of people watching to be done. I often sit and people watch in the starbucks in my local sainsbury. It's endlessly entertaining trying to guess people's body language :-) Lovely photos of the sea. You've inspired me to wiz to the seaside on Sunday with my hound to blow away the cobwebs :-) SmallP xx

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  13. That was beautifully written, very evocative. And your first photo - wow! So atmospheric. Irene

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  14. I was sitting in a beachfront cafe recently, watching someone do just as you describe. What a lifestyle. Envy written all over me.

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  15. It was so lovely to get up this morning and find you had posted something on your blog! Here's a tip about taking notes when you have a brilliant but fleeting literary idea. Make a quick note on your phone. You don't need to write much. Just enough to jog your memory when you get to pen and paper or your computer.

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  16. Love this... you really do have such a gift. Just keep the laptop open, and write anything you need to.

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  17. I've said it before and I'll say it again: goodness, you can write! You've written this about not writing. It would be a crying shame to not use this talent so I hope you will keep at it. I have lots of random sentences spoken into my phone while I'm walking the dog so I don't forget them. Siri often mishears and I can't work out what on earth it was I was thinking about. It is fondly known as MM round these parts (Menopausal Memory). A notebook would be better. Get one :-) S x

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  18. i wrote in a cafe once....i felt strangely self-conscious, even though i was the only one in there and there was no-one to give a rat's arse why i was there and what i was doing.

    personally, i love having written. i don't necessarily enjoy the actual writing...it's ll a bit torturous and frantic in the moment.

    a handy dandy notebook is definitely a great help. unless you're like me and forget to keep it with you at all times.

    you're a natural storyteller. that puts you light-years ahead. ;)
    xoxo

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  19. Your posts are always so readable and the words always flow no matter what the subject. I wish I could do the same! Sarah x

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  20. We are all so good at over-thinking, at wanting to be in the perfect place and the perfect moment, waiting for the muse to strike so that we can fit a romantic ideal of what we think a writer is that we convince ourselves that tomorrow will be a better day to start - and we all know about tomorrow. Just do it. Write rubbish on the back of an envelope, record messages to yourself on your phone, open fifteen Word documents with single paragraphs written on each of them - it really doesn't matter. The sea is always coldest when you first dip your toes into the water, but before you know it, you're swimming xx

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