This week I’ve been using my lunchbreaks to make a lot of notes for poems. I grab myself a soup, sit down, watch the clouds float past and write.
It feels really positive because the poems I am working on are for a special event, and are coming together really well. I am jumping so swiftly from one to another that it feels like I’m on some sort of perpetual motion generator. A poetry train (of thought) if you like!
It’s good that the notebook is working for me because with such long days and so many other things to get done, writing really did feel neglected. In fact, my whole creative life was put on hold once I went back to full-time work. But a few weeks in I’m getting a little balance back. Writing during my lunches; I actually finished a whole book already this week and started a second; I am making the most of the long weekend here to get out and see some live music for the first time in ages.
I don’t want to work full-time for long, but if I can keep some sort of equilibrium for now, at least it won’t set me back completely. My worst case scenario has always been going back to work and not writing any more, and finally I am managing to do both, which gives me a lot of faith in myself.
In other news – This week we’ve reached book 48 on the novels list – A Passage to India by EM Forster. This is a book I want to read, so I haven’t read the comments yet! I have seen the film, or at least parts of the film, but I don’t remember much of it except white suits and hats, and a carriage. And maybe a mountain? It’s been a loooooonnnnnnng time 🙂
And finally – I saw this article about the way we absorb a story being different on physical format to paper format. As someone who loves the physicality of a book, and has only come to screen reading since being gifted an e-reader at Christmas, I am not sure I could ever be objective or dispassionate enough to debate the relative merits of each: the smell and feel of books is part of the reading experience for me. I have read a lot of books on the e-reader now and appreciate its practicality but I think that’s part of its downfall for me. I don’ want a practical reading experience, I want an immersive one – and I still think I get that best with a hard copy book.
Maybe it’s because I’ve always loved reading that to change it – or my relationship with the words – impacts on the subconscious experience. Maybe the love of reading is as much about feeling the weight of a world in my hands as it is exploring it – and on an e-reader every world weighs the same…
On that rather philosophical point, I’m going to bow out for today!
Happy writing,
EJ
🙂
Becoming a writer 