WEEK ONE
'Rain, again.' This could be a title for a book, just like Doris Lessing's, 'Love, again.' What a dreary title, what a dreary day.
Not today. If you wait...the sun does shine. Last chance to cut unwanted tree branches (Gardening Tip: only cut in the months with 'r' in it; go through them, you'll see. Tip for life: leave the hedges alone until September; birds need to nest).
Writer's Diary: A Week in April
Three and a half thousand words on Monday
Eight Hundred stilted words on Tuesday
Song on Wednesday
Starred at the walls on Thursday; was thinking
Set up my domain: www.louisedoherty.net on Friday
Worked out How to make an Active TOC on Saturday
Wrote one word on Sunday. It took ALL DAY! I called it Joyce; days can have names. When I'm old, in the gutter, famous...I will remember Joyce. She made me smile.
Why Write?
“Mrs. McCullers and perhaps Mr. Faulkner are the only writers since the death of D.H. Lawrence with an original poetic sensibility. I prefer Mrs. McCullers to Mr. Faulkner because she writes more clearly; I prefer her to D.H. Lawrence because she has no message.” Graham Greene
Writing Tip One: write
WEEK TWO
There's still loads of rain; falling off the broken gutters, blocking up the drains. The ducks are having a quacking time. Rain's good for writers. Light the fire (open hopefully) and snuggle up to Word.
Then when it's not going so well, or better still, when it's going well, you can blame the rain. Weather's everything.
Weather Openings:
"Dawn."
"The rain fell thickly on the mourners."
"The snow had been falling fast, but Dick, or Jock, or Frederick (Penelope?) spotted the indent of a single footprint."
Easy to forget the weather; but pathetic fallacy is cliched (most of the time; try not to use it)
Isn't it weird how boys' names come so much more easily than girls' names. Why is that?
Writer's Diary: Second Week in April
I reserve the right as a writer to keep my work in progress behind the study door; until such times as I need: to pee, have a cup of tea/coffee, or give/receive a hug.
Thanks for being so understanding.
Why Write?
Why indeed.
Writing Tip Two:
"learnt is the same as learned, you know that.
But listen to the iambic air
For the music sits on the muse's chair
Winged Seraphim who knows it all." Louise Doherty April 30th 2012
WEEK THREE: A week in May
I needed to get something in the chemist yesterday; y'know, sudocream, or shower gel, something perfectly innocent. But then it all turned into a script written by Stephen King: white car, undersized man, leather jacket, dark dark glasses; hidden tatoos (I just knew they were there); shoes that he'd bought to look trendy, but on him they just didn't work.
I was on the pavement. His window was down; he was blurring music...the spied of spieds... but he did a right turn, directly into my left flank.
"Hey," I yelled. I'd had to jump to avoid the car. He stopped the car, politely enough; you could tell he respected his car. "Fuck off," he said to me, as he got out of the car.
I took a step backwards; he was wearing a knuckle-duster: one of those gold coin fronted rings: the cheap and nasty variety whose soul purpose is to break someone else's nose; but one of my slip-on shoes came off. I looked at it out of one eye; keeping my other steadfastly on Mr Not Prince Charming. To be fair, I'd been up all night working: I was no Cinderella: but the shoe was better on than off. If I had to run, and I still thought I might, it'd be difficult. I also liked them.
"You bloody well kicked my car," he said. He then called me "Speccy". No, really. He did. He actually said, "Speccy," which sort of made me laugh inside, except that he was really mad looking. A wimp, but a mad-looking wimp. I was cautious; I figured he was the type to pull a knife. I let the shoe stay where it was, and kept both my eyes focussed on him. He kicked the shoe into the road, and then stuck out his hand, and grabbed at my speccy glasses. His reach wasn't long enough though.
"You're lucky you're a woman," he said. I thought that was kind of funny too, but I wasn't laughing; for I still expected that flick-knife to do a Paul Daniels out of his leather jacket.
But the flick-knife, if it was there, stayed in the jacket. It was daytime, there were people around. He couldn't have got away with it. But that didn't seem to touch his verbal nerves much, "You touch my car again," he said. "And I'll fucking shoot you."
Yip. And all that for a very small tub of sudocream.
But I also figured that This was the beginning. I'd just published my first novel; were the gods intent on turning up the volume of my life. I can write it, I don't need to live it, I protested. But I'm not sure they were listening.
WEEK FOUR
Leonard Cohen is a genius: the cadence, the scansion involved in his lyrics; orgasmic. Coldplay, yer man Chris, wishes he'd written Adele's song 'Someone Like You'. I fancy the muses are in century old, century new competition. Songs transgress time. Sometimes poems. I turned one of Thomas Hardy's poems into a song; he rose from the dead to help me out with the piano score. He knows he freaks me out when he does that, but there you go. He had a good laugh at my efforts, then took control; a bit weird though for the long dead to stand behind you, bemused. He was courteous, but by nature a mischief, a sprite, a plucky one. He's thoroughly tickled with the result. Thanks Thomas; I think his friends called him Tom though. Thanks Mr Hardy.
The Living Muses
The great songwriters: the poets of modern life. Cohen compares writing to ragpicking; the buffet, he maintains, is not set; you've got to look for it; you've got to go to work.
The tone, in voice, and in lyric, of Dolly Parton: it's more forgiving. She's a huge philanthropist; admirable.
Why I write.
My Scottish grandmother
always wanted to write a book. It never happened for her, but before she
died she gave me a picture, framed and old, of angels. It is on my
mother's wall, a symbol of protection.
I always wondered why she
gave that picture to me, and not to any of the other grandchildren; she had
nine others to choose from. Sometimes I like to think it's because she
knew that I'd write a book; not the book she would have written, but a book
nonetheless. Or perhaps she gave it to me because I was the chosen one,
her favourite. At other times I think she gave it to me because she knew
I'd need all the help that was going just to get through life.
I would have loved to
have read my grandmother's book and I'm sad that it was never written, as she
was. You can't grow up without being witness: to the broken window, the
broken heart, the unfulfilled dream. But I don't think you can grow up
either without being witness to the great beauty in the human soul: it marches
on, weakly at times, hesitant, but it marches on, most of the time. So if
I write it's because that's what I want to show: the march and that it's full
of hope despite the struggle...I write to explore that march, to find where I can,
when I can, the great soul of mankind. Writing's an aspiration, sometimes
it works, and sometimes you fall flat on your face, but it's a kind of march,
and that's why I love it.
