Whelmed

Not under. Not over. Just whelmed. Where what you get back is more than you expect – but you can deal with it.

I wrote something approaching a poem last night – and had a message back from a friend in less then ten minutes. I was whelmed. Certainly not underwhelmed (comment is useful, when you’re unsure what others make of what you write), yet not overwhelmed either.

I guess part of what has changed is that I know I can write. Whether I write well, whether I write on topic, whether I’m growing as a writer…well, those are things I can work through by – funnily enough – writing.

But writing a poem is a step further. It’s one thing to offer your gentle reader an inner monologue, on screen – but poetry feels somehow more personal. It says: these are words, striving for beauty and balance.

I used to write poetry. Quite a lot. I wrote in my teens. I wrote at sunset in particular, which I love for the quality of light and the feelings of wistfulness that fit rather nicely with writing.

In my late teens, things changed. I lived abroad. I started university, and started spending a lot more time with my peers. I came to faith.  And somewhere, amid all these changes, the poetry stopped.

It’s easy to write somewhat angst-ridden poetry when you’re in your teens, spending a lot of time on your own, and unsure of what will happen when you grow up.  But if that is what you know how to write, changing those variables can mean that you don’t know what to write about.

One thing that I did learn from that kind of writing experience was the feeling when inspiration strikes. For someone who loves words, it is a blissful feeling, when the direction of the words, the choice of them, flows.

What I’m working with now is putting in the writing time – the craft to support the art. But it can be easier to keep hammering away at the craft aspect – making a range of different things.

To try for something that is more about art – poetry – is harder. Partly because now, having got used to writing in public, if I want to do the art thing, it feels like something that has a place in being public too. (It doesn’t have to be, of course. But that’s where the tug is right now.)

So thanks, friend, for spotting the tilt at poetry. Thanks for helping me think more about why I wrote it before, why I might choose to write it again.

It’s not just the writing – whatever the writing – it’s also the interaction. I didn’t really have that, in the days of teenage writing. I like it. So all in all, whelmed is a good place to be.

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Another go? Yeah. Why not.

Gaining perspective

I’ve tagged this post under Politics, which always feels a bit like I’m in someone else’s territory. Dan was the one who did Politics posts – and who is much more informed about what’s happening in the world.

I used to have a little bit of a newspaper reading habit, back in the days of office work – but I can tell you that the key interest was always in the supplements. The light relief. (There was some fairly serious crossword rivalry too, as I recall.)

So I’m now in the category of people who get their news via Facebook comments from other people. (Or occasionally a quick flick through a copy of Metro, on the bus.) For someone who considers themselves an internationalist, it doesn’t seem quite right.

It is far easier to respond to the rest of what’s happening in the world when you are not a parent. Once you are, there’s only so many demands on your emotional reserves. There’s a tension between your focus at home – and that on the outside world.

So I don’t do a lot of keeping up with the news, I confess – but it does mean I have the resources to focus on peace in our own small empire at home. (And there are days when it seems like UN peacekeeping forces should also be on standby for parents.)

But I gain perspective in a different way now. I see how others respond to world events – through Facebook, a bit, but also through reading other people’s blogs. I don’t just get my take – I get theirs. Not just the info – the emotional element.

America was pretty shaken up in the last few months with the school shooting in Newton, Connecticut. Start reading a few blogs, particularly blogs of parents in the US, and you get the true impact.

So yesterday there was another impact to deal with – the series of bombs going off at the Boston Marathon.  I had my own responses to that, partly with family not far away from there. Today, my reaction changed again – with reading the response Stateside.

Sometimes we are touched emotionally, when we have got all too used to blocking out the emotional aspects of the news. That’s a good thing.

And sometimes we are reminded of better responses – not just disbelief, or anger, or denial, but caring. There’s a great one here, from Lisa-Jo Baker.

Or another on Facebook, reminding us that when there are ‘scary events’, there are also helpers. People who are working hard to support, to care, to restore.

It reminds me that what we see on the news is limited. Our responses to events are affected by so many other factors: our proximity, our history – our memories.

I am thinking of people in Boston today. And I am grateful to be finding a different way to take in the news.

It’s not Politics with a capital P. But it is people. And news is really all about people, in the end.

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Today’s writing – a rather melancholy theme, and an attempt at a villanelle poem for the first time.

Off topic

Hello again. I finally caught up on finishing my posts for last month, turned round – and it was mid April! So I’d better get underway with ‘this’ month.

It’s been a busy time, the last month – birthday party, school fair, actual birthday, family trip abroad…and in the meantime, building work, and the tail end of another in a series of (thankfully mostly shortlived) family illnesses.

Part of my thinking, as I was writing the rest of the March posts, was trying to work out what to write in April.  I have a little file of ideas for posts, and I kept going back through, trying to identify what theme to choose.

Let’s just say that committing to a theme for April seemed to be harder than I thought.  So if in doubt, go off topic – which in this case means a return to writing about writing, I think.

I’ve been reading a lot online, in the meantime. Some of it has been fun, some of it informational. Some,  just being grateful that others are out there, writing their thing, and sometimes their response to a (very) ‘full’ season brings unexpected balm to my own rather too intense spring.

(At least, I think it’s spring.  The flowers seem to think so. So far.)

One of the bloggers I’ve been reading wrote a great post where she described her desire to write at her ‘edge’ ie where she’s up to, rather than where she’s been.  And I think that sums up something of why it’s been so hard to get going with writing for April.

Trying to work my way round a range of themes has been good for me – and, for now, my yardstick is about pleasing myself when I write.

(I do also hit ‘Publish’, so I hope to please a few others along the way, if I can, but that’s not the basis on which I measure the way the writing is going.)

But this spring has brought a lot of change – some good, some very hard at the time. I am changing – so it’s not surprising that what I want to write about might change too.

So I’m planning to stick to the daily discipline of writing – because that feels right. I’m planning to keep going over the spring and summer, which are traditionally the points the writing dries up a bit.

And this month, I’m going to combine writing about where I am at – rather than be tied to a theme.  But because I’m starting mid month, I’m going to add in an extra post a day which is, in effect, a writing prompt of one kind or another.

Some of the these writing prompts are out there online, and pretty popular. Some I’ve come across in other contexts, but they’ll do to add a small amount of focus – as a springboard to some more creative writing.

I may be back to following my nose as I write – I don’t know. I plan to turn up and write, and see where it goes. Again. And if you fancy joining in on the creative writing prompts – feel free. I plan to. (Feel free, that is.)

Today’s writing prompt: six words.

Free the words: before the power runs out

There are various writing prompts out there – I’ve even got a couple to try out before the month is up. One lesser known one is: write until the power runs out.

By this I mean, before I get to 10 mins left of power on the laptop and I need to plug it in again. I usually notice at about 20 mins left, so that’s 10 mins of writing time.

It’s enough.

It can act as a spur to finish up  a post – I’m normally underway when I notice it. Today, I’m starting at 20 mins, working back to 10.

I need to remind myself it’s not a speed typing test, sometimes. But then, sometimes, the ideas are queuing up at the gate, waiting for the off, and it’s all I can do to get my fingers to keep up with the typing.

(There’s also something fun about typing fast. Particularly when you don’t need to stop much, because you know what you want to say.)

I know that there are plenty of people out there who like deadlines – well, they don’t so much like them, but they find them helpful (in the end) to get the job done.

I don’t like deadlines. They sabotage my efforts to get ahead by doing more than I need to in the regular amount of time. (Yes. I know that doesn’t make a lot of sense. Perhaps you need to be a recovering perfectionist, or talk to one, to get that one.)

But despite not liking deadlines, small ones that I choose to go with at times can go OK. Like this one – knowing I’ve got 10 mins to write in, but knowing I can choose whether to go with the challenge or not.

Six minutes left. Not bad. Time to pause. I am waiting for the big trees over the way to come into leaf – always the last to lose their leaves, always the last to have their new ones.

They give me hope – of holding on, and of things coming to fruition. In their own time.

Five minutes left. Perhaps the ideas have slowed a little. Perhaps it’s time to make another leap into the present moment, rather than back into the undercurrent of words inside.

The light is catching half of one towel hanging up in my room. With a home facing east-west, in terms of direction of most windows, there’s a very definite pattern of which rooms have most light at different times of day.

Writing against the clock is a bit like that. Trying to squeeze out the words before the light fades. Or equally, trying to add your own light through words, for just a little longer.

One more minute. I don’t need to do this and I do need to do this and I like writing when the house is quiet. Which of these elements will keep me writing? Which will cause me to grind to a halt?

Sometimes the timer on the computer goes backwards. I haven’t really figured out why. Back to two minutes, back to one again. A reprieve? A chance to capture more light?

Sometimes the trick is to write. To spot the light still available, and write. To spot the spare minute, and write.

Time’s up.

Free the words: tanka

Stepping out

Once upon a time

– the story starts.  Slow down the pace:

Every now and then,

Some words go out for a walk.

I meet them, sometimes, off duty.

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[Something new here – not haiku, but slightly longer. A tanka, another form of Japanese poetry.

I’m enjoying the discipline of creating lines of certain lengths, and seeing how that fits with the conversational tone of the longer lines I’m used to writing.]