Somethingmorebritish

A Top Hat-less Hillside

46th Trial: Liking what you have written. That comes in phases!

Weekly Hours Spent Writing or in the Pursuit of Plot:  6hr over the past two weeks

Weekly Choice of Tea: London Fog Tea Latte

Biggest Success: I have finished Margaret Atwood’s “Handmaids Tale” and began Dicken’s “Bleak House”!

 

Isn’t it funny, how life just relentlessly goes forward? Even after the events that we feel will end us, or will hold us back from where we should be or ought to be? Timelines, examinations, milestones, detachments, and displacements are things that most humans experience–some more than others. It wraps us in its momentum or makes us feel stuck in a bucket of concrete, and we will believe that Life begins afterwards.

These past two weeks have been wonderful. My brother, whose heart is rapidly mending from his past, came to visit. We indulged in the present bliss of the “nowness of life” while we swung off the side of San Francisco cable cars, confident that the passing rain and fog over the city would not prevent us from moving forward. Worries, stresses, and heartbreak do cloud so much of what we see and what we experience;  but we realized that San Francisco was still there. And Madame City was just beautiful.

After he left Jamie and I explored a bit outside the city, and I came to a realization myself. We were walking through Briones National Park, when I became engrossed in its wide open fields, rolling hills, and grazing cattle. The green grass has returned with the wet season of Northern California, and the dead tall blades of spanish grass lay limp, replaced, and only in scattered patches. It was a sight that astonished me:  had I found in America what I dream about in England? The wide open fields, people on horseback (though without top hats and tail coats), and hillsides that give those inspirational views?

I cannot tell you how often I think, I will finish my novel in the Lake District. My dream and destiny is tied to me being in the place that has always inspired me the most. While nothing in my opinion compares to the Lake District in England, I am comforted in the reality that life will not wait for me to be there. In the meantime, I must run along beside it, finding as many open fields and hillsides along the way. And one day I will be in that smokey cottage beside the stone walls and grazing sheep, but my life will not be on hold for that.

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You Love to Write

44th Trial: A story is a part of you, like a cell maturing into an egg, that then grows in the womb (I understand I am skipping a few steps!). When you give birth to it, it becomes detached, in need for nurture and responsibility. This is a strange comparison, however I feel a bond with my novel, and yet a strange detachment. As if I neglected it, and I don’t know it as well as I did when it was only within me.

Weekly Hours Spent Writing or in the Pursuit of Plot: Since it has been over 2 weeks since I last wrote to you all, I hate to admit that my writing hours amounted to a small, dismal, 30 minutes. Let me use the excuses of long weekends working, increase demand of attention elsewhere, and continue to justify my lack of progress.

Weekly Choice of Tea: Turmeric and Ginger, with the occasional Pumpkin Spice Latte (thank you Starbucks for now having almond milk)

Biggest Success: Finished reading the play, The Cursed Child. The magical world filled the empty pockets of my living room once again, and every time Time turned, I felt its rush! I look forward to seeing the play one day, happy to see the dynamics hold strong between Harry, Ron, and Hermione, as I envisioned them to. I know the characters live always within Rowling’s mind, as she has stated, but in a way they never leave the reader’s thoughts or our hopes.

As I said before, I will no longer write of not finding time to write. Or that life gets busy, hectic, stressful, and long-winded. It will ALWAYS be ALL those things. It is a beautiful thing however, to understand that something you create comes from your love of doing so.  It may take daily attempts to see it this way. I love to read and to write, and that passion comes from nothing more complicated than my enjoyment of it. You always read the quotes that say “do more of what you love”, which means the majority of us do not. Though I will support that it is not without lack of trying for most. I never wonder why people do things they do not love doing, but it astonishes me when people ignore the things that they love. Be it the person you are married to, the purpose of your career, the pursuit of knowledge, or the beauty of art.

I sat down to write for the first time yesterday in a couple weeks. The story was extremely malnourished and frankly, I thought pitiful. I reread the paragraph I last wrote. The sentence structure was rudimentary and the language of my genius downright knickbockery. And yes, I just made that word up. Instead of letting self-hatred lead me to give up on my novel, I told myself this:  you love to write. And then I just picked up where I left off, knowing it is my own deficiency of character to NOT work for what I love.

Currently, I am reading Margaret Atwood’s “A Handmaids Tale” as well as a children’s novel, “The One and Only Ivan”. And have not watched anything BBC in too long. It is time that I incorporated something more British into my routine.