I’ve been busy writing lately, working on outlining a novel while doing another comb through of one I thought was done. Writing new poems and editing older ones that sat a while to cool off. Submitting things looms on the horizon, but I’m quite happy just creating at the moment. Along with knitting, spinning yarn, and doing some printmaking. And baking, lots of baking. The usual ADHD life. I stumbled across an interesting video on YouTube that validated Doing All Things, as opposed to those that command ‘stick to one thing and one thing only’. What a dull life that would be. All my interests feed each other to some degree. I also found on YouTube a plethora of writing and art advice, which all seems to be titled with words and phrases like
Don’t! Bad! Worst! Forget about that! Stop Doing This! How to Draft/Edit/Write the Correct Way. The Only Whatever You’ll Ever Need. This One Thing Will Solve All Your Problems… etc.
No wonder writers are neurotic. They buy into the idea if you just watch the video, read the article, do all the things, your writing will miraculously become a best seller. Not that there isn’t some good advice sprinkled throughout. I know the titles are to grab attention and make you watch/read but boy can they make you feel called out. Am I doing this? Am I not doing that? Why did I ever decide to write in the first place? So I’ve become picky about which videos I watch, and fill my feed with art, fiber crafts, Corgi videos, and cooking videos, and pared down the writing ones to people I think offer good information without all the hype. Ones that say, You Can Do It!
Can you do it?
Maybe it has to do with all the negativity the country is going through. It’s much easier to be negative than positive it seems. It’s why I backed away from social media, it’s a cesspool of negativity. Making art, spinning/knitting/weaving, baking, feeding squirrels—all make me feel positive. Doing everything helps the positivity bleed over into my writing. It helps me adapt the mindset of “Hey, I like this. Let’s do more.” Heck it’s good for overall positivity also.
Then again, so is squirrel watching. Be more like the squirrels. Search through the dinner pan for your favorite nut. Call out to your friends that lunch is served. Tell off the dog from the top of a chain link fence. Scatter doves left and right as you race toward the food bowl. Above all, don’t let anyone tell you to stop being you. You’ll get where you are going, in your own way and in your own time. My ‘One Neat Trick’.
I have a blank space in my brain between the trip to London in the spring and OMG kids (not mine) are going back to school. I think it’s called summer-oh no-what happened-it’s-fall. It’s been hotter than ever in my corner of the U.S., highest temp on the back porch was 111—in the shade. Daily it was 90 to 100 with the 90s hitting about 9 a.m. Needless to say I didn’t get much done outside the house except scanning the horizon for wildfires. Now it’s almost November and I’m still wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Still scanning for wildfires.
Inside, however, is another story. Lots of writing going on. My ADHD brain decided to juggle the sequel to one contemporary fantasy novel, a second epic fantasy novel, and poems all at the same time. I’m holding multiple characters in my head, and you know what? It’s working. Such is the superpower of ADHD. Compartmentalizing and switching tracks on a moment’s notice. I wish I had seen it as a superpower long ago instead of a detriment as I was told.
It also holds the ability to hyper-focus, allowing me to actually do one paragraph and more outlines of chapters. Me, outlining more than a sentence. (Checks outside for flying pigs. Who would be crispy bacon in the heat.) It’s helped lock in that compartmentalizing part of my brain. If I got stuck on one story, I hopped to the other. Or poetry. Or some artwork. (Housecleaning, not so much.) Rinse, repeat.
I used Scrivener to do the outlining because I really like the corkboard function. It’s probably what trolled me over to the dark side. (Outlining). Then I slowly came around to other methods of outlining after a nifty fiction writers meeting. They helped explain what each part of the outlining method was supposed to do. And I understood it! Finally! I think combining the showing part of the presentation, examples, and hearing it aloud helped tremendously. I’But never fear, I still pants some of my chapters when the outline isn’t quite loosey goosey enough. So the best of both worlds, really.
I haven’t quite adapted to using Scrivener for the actual writing part. (Or Auto Crit) I think too many years of using Word makes it the more comfortable option. Technology—including air conditioning—has made this a season—or two seasons rather—to get serious writing done. I usually look forward to winter for writing, trapped in the house is prime time to let the percolating thoughts loose. But right now it falls to fall to be my vizualization time. The cool mornings, hot afternoons, and cool to cold nights fit my fickle brain perfectly. So I’ll stay in my bubble and crank out more words. Then we’ll see how ADHD brain handles editing this time around. Despite the flip-flopping thought process, perfectionism is still a thing. How do you multitask? Does perfectionism get in the way of your writing?
We took a fun excursion to London recently, and I didn’t think about writing once. I wanted a reset. No poems, no notebook, no scribbled ideas on my latest novel. Just the day-to-day joy of being in the moment. I didn’t even take as many pictures as I normally do, wanting to experience everything without a filter between my eye and the subjects.
We mostly toured museums, our passion for the past driving us. The British Museum in particular, where I could see all the mummies, statues, pottery, tools, chessmen, and hieroglyphs my heart desired. Things I’d studied in history and art history classes. Of course, to complete the art history trifecta, we hit the National Gallery and Tate Modern museums. Admiring paintings in person made my brain happy. There’s nothing like seeing the swirls of paint in a Van Gogh for yourself.
Pharoah Statue British Museum, Horse head from Parthenon, British MuseumLewis Chessmen – King, Bishop, Berserker British MuseumThe bane of studying for my Philosophy degree. Ancient Philosophers.
Now that the trip is a couple of weeks in the past, my mind turns to exploring the sights and sounds of having been in London, looking for patterns and turning phrases around and around. Poems lurk on the periphery, waiting to be coaxed into life. I use the feelings of being a stranger in another country in my novel, guiding the character through missteps. We didn’t make that many—I think—because we read and videoed up on the place before we went.
Van Gogh, Sunflowers, National GalleryPrime Meridian, Greenwich ObservatoryView from Greenwich ObservatoryBig Ben from one of our walk abouts
It was the small things. Standing to the right on escalators to let the impatient people go by. Waiting for others to get off the train before we got on. Saying good morning to our barista. (Who got to know us well.) Remembering politeness, something that seems to be dropping by the wayside as the century goes on. We found Londoners to be generally polite people. I was always offered a seat on the subway by random males. Perhaps due to the silver streaks in my hair? But it was appreciated. Especially after six hours walking in museums and the time spent walking from the Underground (and its numerous stairs) to the latest location.
This is not the Army’s hiking
That was another thing I enjoyed (mostly) The walking to get places. My current hometown is very car-centric, so being able to use public transportation and pop out close to my destination was a relief. I’m sure you folks in big cities know the feeling. Of course, being on vacation, there was no real rush to get places. We arrived when we arrived. We could enjoy the streets and scenery. Twice we took random walks, once in the Paddington neighborhood we stayed in, where we found a fabulous Italian restaurant, and the second time when we blew off another museum and just walked around Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. It was beautiful, we enjoyed watching the dogs frolic on the expanses of green grass, got rained on, saw Guards on horses practicing for a parade, and generally just reveled in the pretty (long) walk.
Kensington Garden flowers
Our home base for excursions was Paddington Station, and it’s funny how having a ‘center’ at the beginning and end of the day really helped. Not to mention the coffee shops in the station. Got to get our fix coming and going. The hustle and bustle in the station was a nice contrast to the slow pace of my rural hometown. My brain embraced the contrast, and now that I’ve had time to digest it all, I feel words stirring. The urge to jump back into writing and explore relationships between people and places. I’m ready.
Do you remember which poems pulled you into poetry? The ones that dazzled and beguiled you? I was given a book of poems very early by my grandmother and grew fascinated by the rhythm and the words. I was lucky enough to have elementary school teachers that emphasized poetry in their literature lessons. Memorizing a poem gave me a friend to recite in my head whenever I needed. Of course, a steady diet of Shakespeare in high school helped me fall in love with poetry also. Here are the five poems, in no particular order.
First Poem
My grandfather gave me a book that had the following poem in it. Among all the others it stood out. I didn’t live near the ocean, just visited it on vacations, but the poem has such longing and romanticism in it I couldn’t help but be enraptured. I was always reading history and historical novels in school, so this one captured my imagination.
Sea Fever
by John Masefield
I must go down to the seas again, to the
lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer
her by;
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and
the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey
dawn breaking.
I must go down to the seas again, for the call
of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be
denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white
clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and
the sea-gulls crying.
I must go down to the seas again, to the
vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way, where
the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing
fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the
long trick’s over.
Second Poem
I have a very old copy of the Complete Poems of Robert Frost. I don’t know where it came from or how long I’ve had it, but this poem is bookmarked. It is very evocative and reminds me of Christopher Marlowe’s poems. Of course I love all the classic Frost poems, “The Road Not Taken”, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”, “Birches”, “Mending Wall”, and “Nothing Gold Can Stay”.
A Line-storm Song
by Robert Frost
The line-storm clouds fly tattered and swift,
The road is forlorn all day,
Where a myriad snowy quartz stones lift,
And the hoof-prints vanish away.
The roadside flowers, too wet for the bee,
Expend their bloom in vain.
Come over the hills and far with me,
And be my love in the rain.
The birds have less to say for themselves
In the wood-world’s torn despair
Than now these numberless years the elves,
Although they are no less there:
All song of the woods is crushed like some
Wild, easily shattered rose.
Come, be my love in the wet woods; come,
Where the boughs rain when it blows.
There is the gale to urge behind
And bruit our singing down,
And the shallow waters aflutter with wind
From which to gather your gown.
What matter if we go clear to the west,
And come not through dry-shod?
For wilding brooch shall wet your breast
The rain-fresh goldenrod.
Oh, never this whelming east wind swells
But it seems like the sea’s return
To the ancient lands where it left the shells
Before the age of the fern;
And it seems like the time when after doubt
Our love came back amain.
Oh, come forth into the storm and rout
And be my love in the rain.
Third Poem
Then there’s Emily Dickinson. She wove in and out of my early poem reading, and I fell in love with her succinct style that said so much. She’s still one of my favorite poets. Setting Sail, as it got titled somewhere along the way, is one poem I memorized because it speaks to me as a landlubber who finally went out to sea.
Emily Dickinson
VII.
SETTING SAIL.
Exultation is the going
Of an inland soul to sea, —
Past the houses, past the headlands,
Into deep eternity!
Bred as we, among the mountains,
Can the sailor understand
The divine intoxication
Of the first league out from land?
Fourth Poem
I stumbled across High Flight while reading some WWII history. Our family has close ties to aviation, my father worked in the industry. Some vacations we’d drive out to that city’s airport and watch the planes take off and land. There were pilgrimages to the Air and Space Museum. In the Army I even put in to fly helicopters. Alas, my eyesight wasn’t good enough.
John Gillespie Magee Jr., the RAF poet, wrote very few poems during WWII but sent them to his parents in letters. He was killed in a training accident on December 11, 1941. I think of this poem whenever I hear one of my favorite songs – Pink Floyd’s Learning to Fly. Both speak to pilots, astronauts, and wanna be flyers everywhere.
High Flight
by John Gillespie Magee Jr.
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds,—and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air ....
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark nor ever eagle flew—
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
Learning to Fly video
Lyrics:
Learning to Fly
Into the distance, a ribbon of black
Stretched to the point of no turning back
A flight of fancy on a wind swept field
Standing alone my senses reeled
A fatal attraction is holding me fast
How can I escape this irresistible grasp?
Can't keep my eyes from the circling sky
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
Ice is forming on the tips of my wings
Unheeded warnings, I thought I thought of everything
No navigator to find my way home
Unladened, empty, and turned to stone
A soul in tension that's learning to fly
Condition grounded but determined to try
Can't keep my eyes from the circling skies
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
Friction lock, set
Mixtures, rich
Propellers, fully forward
Flaps, set - 10 degrees
Engine gauges and suction, check
Above the planet on a wing and a prayer
My grubby halo, a vapor trail in the empty air
Across the clouds I see my shadow fly
Out of the corner of my watering eye
A dream unthreatened by the morning light
Could blow this soul right through the roof of the night
There's no sensation to compare with this
Suspended animation, a state of bliss
Can't keep my mind from the circling sky
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
Songwriters: Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne
For non-commercial use only.
Last but not least
Of course, no influence of mine would ever be complete without the main man himself, William Shakespeare. I ran into Shakespeare in high school English class, first in plays we acted out, then through the sonnets. There are many sonnets I like, sometimes it depends on the day and how I’m feeling. But if I had to choose just one, this would be it.
William ShakespeareSonnet 14: Not From The Stars Do I My Judgement Pluck
Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck;
And yet methinks I have Astronomy,
But not to tell of good or evil luck,
Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons’ quality;
Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,
Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind,
Or say with princes if it shall go well
By oft predict that I in heaven find:
But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,
And, constant stars, in them I read such art
As truth and beauty shall together thrive,
If from thyself, to store thou wouldst convert;
Or else of thee this I prognosticate:
Thy end is truth’s and beauty’s doom and date.
You may sense a theme in all these poems. I never realized until I started keeping track of all the poems that moved me. I have a folder, My Great Big Pile O’Inspiration, for when I just need to immerse myself in words I love. How about you? Any poems that have wended their way into your heart?
