Friday 29 October 2021

Stories I may never write...

It all started as a challenge to the Suffolk Writers Facebook Group to write a list from A to Z of possible book titles, 3 words of less.

As I love a good bit of writerly procrastination, here's my own full list, I haven't stuck to the 3 word rule but I have made it all rhyme and created a nonsense poem - please borrow any that take your fancy but please share if you do!

(however Kitty McClaw is already taken - something I wrote years ago, click here to read)


Acapella Tales

Beluga and the Whale 

Candle-shine at Night

Delia Makes it Right

Elephants love Shade

Forbidden Lemonade

Grandma's Hidden Gems

Henry's Mislaid Pens

Imagination Overload

Jumping Jackson Toad

Kitty McClaw's Grand  Day Out

Luna Roundabout

Madness of the First Degree

Naturally Bee

Open After Hours

Possibility of Showers

Queenie for a Day

Royalty Comes to Stay

Sunny Disposition

Tremendous Superstition

Under My Umbrella

Vicky Meets a Fella

Which Vest is Best

X-Ray of the Chest

Yellow Flowers on my Grave

Zig the Slug is Very Brave

Saturday 23 October 2021

The A - D of Planning

 A is for A Team - Hannibal Smith loved it when a plan came together.

B is for Baldrick, with the aid of Black Adder he hatched many a cunning plan.

Plan C – was the name of a cat in the Australian soap opera Sons and Daughters.

 

Like Hannibal I love a good plan that runs to clockwork, unfortunately successful plans are a scarce commodity in the modern age.

I used to be good at making plans, or at least I believed I was, I derived pure joy from putting my schemes into practice, a few even worked out to some degree! Maybe it was all just day dreaming but it was so much fun.

After Andrew died a friend suggested I abandon my meticulous ideas of what the future would look like and go with the flow instead.

It didn’t come naturally but after many years of dented expectations it became easier to let go.

After having cancer, I threw everything in the air. Brexit, Covid and everything that has followed since has blown away any hope I had of having the life I once wished for.

Welcome to the world of no plans.

It’s quite frankly depressing, I need something to look forward to and even the tentative schemes are held so lightly now, I almost plan for them to come crashing down. I give a hollow laugh “I told you so!”

November wobbles have arrived too early this year, the news for the future is bleak, no one has a plan anymore.

It feels as if we are going “through a rice pudding in a mini-sub”, one of Andrew’s expressions that seems rather apt just now, especially as I hate rice pudding, the milky smell of it, the lumpy texture -yuk!

But I don’t want to leave my thoughts here, I need a way out, to find some hope to keep me going through what will inevitably be a long, cold winter.

I’ve planted tulips and onions this week, is that enough to hope for? Can I hold on ‘til Spring?

For more immediate sparkle Strictly is on TV tonight. Perhaps I need to get swept up in a Strictly daydream, the one where I am a “celebrity” and get asked to appear.

Not really a plan but a great distraction, which reminds me I started writing this poem the other day, scuttles over to Facebook to find it for you....

Perhaps plan D should be DANCE? 

Just forget the news, the dashed dreams, all the worries and cares, instead move my feet, shake my hips, wriggle into that comfortable spot in the sofa and watch the magic happen!

 

 

            My hair and make-up completed,

       I open the dressing room door,

       Here is my partner, so handsome!

       We’re ready to take to the floor.

 

       My Argentine Tango would dazzle,

       My waltz would be sure to delight,

       My Charleston would be cheeky,

       My foxtrot the best of the night.

 

       I'd throw myself in at the deep end.

       Be a generous, friendly celeb.

       But my fame is only imagined

       So, I'll just have to watch it instead! 



Monday 11 October 2021

Too Many Broken Hearts

 In 1989 when Stock, Aiken and Waterman ruled the radio airwaves, Jason Donovan sang about broken hearts to an up-beat, bouncy disco tune. In the video he sat strumming his guitar, with no anguish in his demeanor just a dazzling smile somewhat at odds with the title of the song.



It contains the line…

I’ll be hurt, I’ll be hurt if you walk away!

Thinking about the lyrics and the tune now it’s all so feeble. It could be describing kids squabbling in a playground kind of “hurt” - you pushed me - you started it. A small graze on the knee kind of hurt which will scab over only leaving the faintest of scars if you pick at it too much.

At the time I loved the song, after all Jason, Kylie and I were in born in the same year, so we must be kindred spirits – ’68 was such a good vintage.

Over thirty years later (which doesn’t seem possible) I know the real pain of a broken heart, it’s beyond a little bit of hurt, but Mr Donovan is right about one thing, there are far too many of them in the world.

I guess it’s inevitable as you get older that more people join that special club, the one I’ve been a part of for years, exclusively for widows, widowers and those who have lost the love of their lives. As time rolls on, I find more and more friends and acquaintances cross over to my camp.  Once I was the pioneer, the only one here negotiating this strange new territory.

Maybe that’s too fanciful an image but when I started my first blog, just after Andrew died, friends read my words and were helped as I poured out the contents of my broken heart into the ether.

I’ve always wanted to turn my words into a book, hoping the wisdom I have gathered can help others. My legacy, some recompense for my own suffering, making it all strangely worthwhile.

To this end I put my money where my mouth is and coughed up for a Curtis Brown Creative short, online, writing course in the summer, led by memoirist Cathy Rentzenbrink. She is an excellent teacher, even if on the short course you only get to watch her video tutorials rather than meet her in person.

I turned in my shorter assignments each week and got some great peer feedback from others on the course. Encouragement to carry on, I have a story to tell.

But writing a memoir is so different from writing a blog. It needs more of a narrative, a story telling quality. The facts I consider most important and want to explain in great detail need cutting as I show the scenes of my life through a cinematic lens. I need drama, light and shade, panning shots and zooming in. Show not tell.

I have never appreciated all this before. At the beginning I just thought I could stitch together blog posts with a few extra comments in between as glue, it was just a matter of rearranging and sorting. This process has taken me ten years already, stopping and starting, and maybe it will take another ten to complete it, which is a daunting prospect.

Meanwhile the list of the broken hearted grows and I welcome others to this barren land of bereavement.

Nothing I write can ever heal a deepest hurt but I remain convinced I need to keep going. Hoping and praying my words find the right ear and bring some soothing balm in difficult days, a quiet voice whispering, "I know your heart aches and you are not alone."