Result and more.....

In black and white I read that I had passed the Art of Poetry with 68% - a B grade. I was relieved of course that the one part of the degree that I endlessly state I dreaded was finished but then I felt a little disappointed that I couldn't reach that extra 2%. A festive glass of port and I was more philosophical - I have to focus on the course I am on and not wonder what I could have done differently.

I have written before about being an introvert and at this time of the year it becomes a huge burden for me. The Christmas Meal for my work team was on Friday and, as always, I made excuses and avoided it. To a certain extent I was telling the truth because I did have things to do; just not anything pressing or time sensitive (as our team would put it). So I went home, got on with the chores, wrapped presents and then picked up the partner.

Last night, after visits from two sets of friends at our house to exchange gifts, gossip and grumblings, we were out to a work colleague’s home for a "drop in" evening event. This is a work colleague of my partners, not mine. I was walking into a room where my partner would be the only person I actually knew - it bothered me. But then I get worried and bother when we go to parties at a friend’s home! I blame this on the control freak in me - he likes to know what is supposed to happen, what time, what he should wear and what he should take "just in case". I tagged a "one hour limit" to our visit....my partner agreed.

So, through the rain and with a hand drawn map, we made our way across our town to a charming little cul de sac and a twinkling lit terraced house. The moment we entered (me following of course) the home of Louisa I felt my social muscles relaxing. It was warm, inviting and homely with an awful lot of style, laughter, conversation and tea-lights flickering around Christmas decorations. The Hostess was elegant, very smiley, an attractive woman in her fifties who after ten minutes of us being there announced that "everyone was here" and slipped off her gold sparkly heels and went around barefoot for the rest of the evening. We were introduced in a charming way that only someone who loves to entertain and does it alot can - we were even introduced to the lurcher dog, a tan coloured, athletic specimen called Jessie. She was shy, moving around the room taking in the smell, eyeing us and approaching slowly; she attached herself to me, lying at my feet and allowing me to rub her belly.

My partner sat next to a work colleague and her partner, Rhia and John. We bantered, or rather they did and I listened and laughed and commented when appropriate. The hostess floated between us, chatting laughing, storytelling introducing her partner Dave who was fun and had a face used to smiling. By the time she sat on the floor leaning with her elbow on my thigh and chatting I was relaxed. It was then she gently started to question me....

"Are you into sport?" The question was a natural one, just been introduced and starting to find common ground and subjects after talking about dogs for most of the evening and work events. I stumbled. I thought about mentioning about the gym, about my time training in martial arts, my running in the Portland 10 two years running....but decided no.

I mentioned a passing interest in rugby and the 2012 Olympics which seemed to kick of the conversation again. She was trying to be polite but my instant reaction was not to expose myself by talking about me. There were too many people, too much noise and it was too early. Strangely - once we were home I thought about my reluctance; we had stayed two hours and could have stayed a little longer. It's about me being an Introvert, not liking to reveal, preferring to hide, to slip along unnoticed; it's not about not achieving, it's about doing what you want to do without exposing your desire, your need to achieve.

It's something I have always done and the habit is now ingrained. When asked I wanted a "job" rather than shouting from the bottom of my soul that I wanted to tell stories, to hide in the shadows and craft outrageous tales, to write! Now when I see someone consumed by a passion I tell them not to hold back, never take second best, to fight and claw and holler and if they fall to get right back up and walk on - relentlessly!

That is, in part, what I have done. I have been relentless. It's always been there - the notebooks, the post-its and the scribbled ideas hidden away - kept where no-one would see. I may not shout my desire - stand up and bellow - but I have it, it's there, constantly whispering, pleading and poiting out its need. It's not getting louder but it's getting more forceful.

Maybe if she'd asked "what is your great passion in life" I might, maybe, could have, had the courage to have answered truthfully for once....I want to write, something good, something which makes people want to read to the end, to shake, shiver, smile, laugh and put it aside, feeling happy to have read it......

Beginning...lies and comparison....

I have now started the new course on my degree pathway, Writing for Children. My tutor is Nina Milton, a return performance (or should that be trial) for her and I am hugely lucky to have her.

So... I did the usual, read all through the work books, advice and the first chapter of the binder. I plunged into the exercises, looked at the timeline of published children’s books and visited a book shop and took note of the children’s section and the books being offered...

I decided the first children’s book would be Neil Gaimans Coraline. I have read it before but this time, with the first few exercises and advice still ringing in my mind I found it much more vivid, strange and charming; it also seemed more sinister than I remembered. This time I made notes in the margin; reading a chapter and then going back and re-reading (this seems to work with me and has always been my habit with certain books/exercises). Context is everything and so while thinking about the course I read it with a different set of rules or ideas than the last time. I enjoyed it and the analysing of the cover (colour and illustration) and the drawings within (though these are sparse) made the experience more rounded; I thought more about who it was aimed at.

The exercises over I moved to the assignment.

The assignment asks you to remember a book you loved as a child and, after jotting down what you remember about it, to re-read it; then to move on to a contemporary equivalent, by age group and genre, and read that. The reflective piece you are to produce is to compare the two.

Reading the assignment a book popped into my head – White Fang by Jack London (Published 1906) (read by me at the age of ten around 1976). This puzzled me – I thought I hated the book. My initial notes reflect that it was brutal and made me angry - that anger being remembered from a distance of thirty six years; the harsh environment, the beatings given to the main character and terror he goes through. So the question was why this book popped into my mind above all others?

 I thought harder and remembered others but none stirred as much as this one. As for the contemporary equivalent I thought of Michelle Paver’s Wolf Brother (Published 2004) (read by me 2004) the story about an early human boy, a wolf and his clan structured world – this I thought would make a good comparison because of similar subject matter and genre. Also, in my opinion, both books are heavily aimed at a male readership.

What's also struck me and made things even stranger was that I recalled being read and reading the series Littlenose by John Grant, a string of illustrated stories about a Neanderthal boy. I think I may have to get a copy to see if Littlenose has a wolf or dog!

So I began with White Fang. I find that a really good book takes hold of you for the first third of the book, dragging you in with your feet scrabbling to keep you in sync with your enthusiasm. The second part is the revelling in the story, characters and narrative; slowing down but wrapped in the world created within the pages. Then comes the worst part of a really good book-based experience, the final third; this is the part when the pages are diminishing, you are coming to the end and no matter how much you want to know the outcome you also want to revel in the first reading, the first flush, the first steps into this world that you have come to know.

This is what has happened with White Fang. I have read the first third, remembering how stark and brutal some of the scenes are but it drew me in and I was revelling in the scenery, the language and the wolf-view of the world. I am still quite shocked at the treatment of White Fang, to the point that when my twelve year old nephew asked me what I was reading for my course (something he does on a regular basis) I lied!

I told him I was reading Coraline. At this he shrugged and made the comment that he thought it was “good but a girls book, really”.

The question was why did I think he shouldn’t know? Did I think he couldn’t handle this book? This child who ten minutes before the question was playing a fantasy escape game firing arrows into hordes of blood-venting demons – would he not be able to handle the scene in the book where the puppy is held aloft and beaten repeatedly with a heavy hand?

It’s an interesting question, not least because I was younger than him when I read the book and less exposed to news reports, papers and internet based access to the brutality of life than he is.

It is something I need to think about and perhaps refer to in my assignment essay.

My initial recollection of White Fang was not liking the book – but after reading it again, going through the narrative which does contain hardship and brutality – the stark reality of the time and environment – I admire the character of the wolf because of his endurance, strength, adaptability and intelligence.

I have realised that the memory of this book was about how this wolf endured, fought the injustices done to him and overcame obstacles. You might hate the journey but the character and his ultimate destination is what matters…I now wonder how I will view Wolf Brother when compared.

Poetry Parcel

It is amazing how a course can terrify you at the beginning and I have more than once described writing poetry as being placed in restraints...and then you batch up the three assignments and commentaries along with the tutor reports and step into the post office. Okay, so it could have euphoria at completing the course but this was genuine.

The the rosy-cheeked post mistress looked at the parcel, took the payment and then asked whether the box was "full of poems". For a moment I was dim-witted enough not to understand how she knew and then remembered the label, stating the course subject on the outside.

I found myself standing in a little village post office waxing lyrical about how much work it had been, how rewarding it was and how worthwhile it it was. She was smiley, telling me about her little attempts as she called them. She jotted down the course book, Staying Alive, and I encouraged her to jot down the Open College Of The Arts and to look at the courses. She chuckled and found myself assuring her that it was a craft and you could learn it; with the tutors help and lots and lots of work.

I was genuinely walking on air when I stepped out of the shop. Strange this writing lark!

Don't want to be a frog.....

My partner is away for three days and two nights. On the first night I had a friend over and we embarked on a marathon session of eating well, drinking, watching a movie or three and catching up with long conversations.

By the time he left it was nearer to four am. I washed up and settled myself into bed, with the radio playing, set very low, as is my habit when alone for the night. For a few moments I enjoyed the aloneness, the still and quiet; also the knowledge that with a few exceptions, I was the only one awake at that time. Others who were making their way home were either finishing a work shift or too inebriated to appreciate the moment, I would suggest but maybe that is arrogance on my part. I lapsed into sleep relaxed and exhausted.

I awoke five hours late and embarked on a decided choice NOT to see anyone. This is a luxury for me. My partner is highly social (to my mind) and enjoys interrupting me even when we have a relaxing day, where we both agree to read, watch something saved for our enjoyment or work on our respective projects.

There was a knock on our window. I knew from the manner and force that it was a close friend. In a moment my feelings hardened and I remained where I was, conducting a mental inventory of the windows, the blinds etc. and whether they would betray that I was at home. I concluded they wouldn't and settled back to my book. There was a second knock and I began to feel guilty, producing a list of reasons why (should that be justifications?) I would not answer. The main one I hit on was - what would I have done if I had been writing for a living and working? I would have ignored the knock...so I did. They went away....

I allowed myself to drift and settle on what took my interest throughout the day. So much so that I hardly ate - preferring to drink coffee interspersed with glasses of water. The evening came and I received a few messages from my friend thanking me for the evening and angling for a visit that evening. I switched off my mobile and keep all the curtains closed against the outside world. Twenty four hours pass and the only interaction with another human was a call from my partner - replete with a cold and suffering, despite the trip to the hallowed Brighton and Sussex.

Being an insomniac for almost all my life, at least as long as I can remember, I find sleeping, either getting there or staying there, difficult. Melatonin (3mg tablets) has helped and I decided to take advantage of no distractions and took one - getting into bed at a little after ten pm; again radio on playing a CD of Derek Jacobi narrating the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. I slept, deeply, waking fully at ten am.

The phone went almost immediately and I felt invaded - I was cleaning my teeth on a bright Sunday morning and someone wanted a piece of me already! It was the friends that had called the day before - "was I up for a visitation...hello? Helloooo?" I shook my head and decided not.

Post breakfast (a coffee with three spoonfuls of drinking chocolate and sweeteners - a rare indulgence) my partner called - still full of cold and with news of his return later tonight. Settled back and did a little reading, caught up on the news; carefully avoiding anything that might anger me. While upstairs listening to a radio play there was a knock at the door; two different hands knocked - one the heavy fist of my large friend and the less insistent tap of his wife. Again a list of excuses spilled through me; why I shouldn’t, why I should! I again waited and they went away. I justified this with the excuse that they expected BOTH of us to be here and really they had come to see BOTH of us and to find only me would be ... disappointing or at least not as fulfilling or entertaining. I was saving them from an less that ecstatic experience.

I went back to my computer. I know that this is partly because I have taken two study days away from work - tomorrow and the day after - to complete the compilation and tweaking before submission for final assessment for The Art of Poetry. I am getting myself ready to work hard. I then was drawn, in a way that only the net can do - random links and the "what's that" scenario which results in "how did I get there?" - to a ten myths about introverts.

I read them and ticked off each one in turn. The final quirk was a link to a blog which gave the following poem as an observation of an introvert and it rang through me instantly:

I’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there’s a pair of us — don’t tell!
They’d banish us, you know.
How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!
–Emily Dickenson

I think I have found something through this course that I feared - feared the course not the something. I am not grumpy, difficult or, as my partner and many of my friends and work colleagues suggest, a control freak (although I am that too), I am an introvert.

I hate "role-play" in the workplace, giving any kind of speech and only finding I can speak out during a meeting of my peers when something angers me or there is an untruth. I am beginning to understand that my couple of hours a night, in my office surrounded by my keepsakes, relics, books, photographs etc. is my re-charge time; my daily re-charge. It also serves to allow me to think and write. Thankfully my partner understands this need and activity - being a violinist he needs space, time and aloneness to practice and play. 

This also explains my reluctance for writers groups and circles. I simply don't feel any desire to go. I admire anyone who can stand up and give a speech, read their own work out to their peers for advice and study or stand and sing but it's not for me. I don't want to be a frog....

Mummy problem...

Over ten years ago I went to the British Museum with a friend. We were BM virgins and keen to spend the whole day there "getting some culture". We moved from room to room; reading, pointing and gasping at the sheer quality and breadth of the contents of the cabinets and displays.

On Saturday I took my partner to London, we met friends in the BM and decided to play BM Lottery. We picked a room at random and made our way to it.

 This was after going to the Sutton Hoo room which was fantastic; the previous times we have been pieces have been absent for cleaning.

So we made our way through the rooms pausing at ceramics, artefacts and books etc. We then happened upon the Mummy rooms. In the cabinets were the sarcophagi, ornate, beautiful and ancient. Then I caught sight of a man taking a picture of his child posing beside the cabinet containing a female Mummy; the coverings were so thin and her body so delicately wrapped that each individual finger could be seen, the shape of her toes and the curve of her hips.

I dropped my camera to my side and made sure it was switched off. Despite the ornate painting on the sarcophagi and the jewellery, all on show for photographs and my having a good camera capable of taking pictures which would show them at their best, I couldn't do it.

I walked ahead of my companions and really observed what we were doing. What other species digs up it's ancient dead and, having preserved them, places them on show? Seeing these people laying in a place they would never choose for themselves, on display for the observations and photographs of the modern, enlightened human suddenly made me feel off balance. They weren't exhibits to me. They were people. I concentrated on the exhibits and avoided looking at the bodies; making my way through the rooms slightly quicker than my friends anticipated.

We moved on. I told myself that I was being sensitive - they were dead after all and not having a particular religion myself (more a vague feeling of wonder and curiosity) - who was I to feel like this?

Later - in a rather nice public house - I gave voice to my uneasiness. Our friends are both highly educated and lean more to science than to the arts etc. Immediately they joined in with my feelings of unease. They commented - "what would you do with that photo? In years to come - father to daughter - "Oh look darling here's you aged five next to a pillaged corpse of an teenage Egyptian girl. Wonderful isn't it?!"

My partner commented that it was like "a foreign power going into Westminster Abbey and digging up various Royal Family members and the elite of our scientists and thinkers and placing them on show".

I know that the artefacts have been "collected" from all over the world and I am ambiguous about having some rather than others; but bodies, especially human beings....should these be allowed to be treated like the waxworks in Tussauds? I may believe that when we go we shed this mantle of dust and light and whatever is left does not care about the shell it leaves behind, but surely those still "in possession" of their corner of clay should "feel" these people are due some respect?

Unmade Masks, unfinished ghosts....

I have a problem with learning logs. It's a diary by any other name but with a spoecific purpose. I keep notes, thoughts and impressions but not in a very orderly fashion and certainly not in a coherent stream. I knwo this should be part of my habit as a (would be) writer but I have always had a problem with diaries.

Sometimes I have kept secrets of my friends, observations and feelings that I would prefer to forget, dilute and dissipate with time and distance. But with a diary you refresh it evertime it's read -  the emotions come back hard and sharp, tearing through time and into the closed scars . I found an old diary some months ago, 1990, when I was living at home, doing overtime and saving for my first house.

An exciting time you would think - four years into my 26 year career, eager to get on and get my own place; in love -  a love of sorts.

I wrote in this spiral notebook diary everyday for ten months; kept cuttings, wrote down historical dates and anniversaries and more. I recorded the buying of some plaster of paris for a project to cast my face and my lovers. A hot August day, the 26th we covered our faces in vaseline to ensure the plaster would not stick to eyebrows and hairline. Straws were inserted in our nostrils and we each became encased in the mixture which heated up as it set; a very strange experience. My diary records that I was planning on "tidying up" the cast made and then creating a mask. It never happened - the cast got place in the garage, wrapped in cloths and put aside while I found my way to affording a new home and losing my lover - both the mask template and the "affair" was left unfinished. The mask is still in my shed....the dairy found in a box. Like a pair of ghosts. Thwounds are healed but as with the affair and the mask -  things have been left unfinished.

I fear diaries. They are you from back then speaking to yourself that is now...and the voice and perspective is different.

I can cobble my notes and observations together and the learning journal is there but I rely on my memory and the notes made for the assignments I hand in as my record of thinking and reactions. I am going to try harder and put down my thoughts - this has to be done, not for the first time, my tutor has encouraged me to open up. As with most of my life, friendships and relationships I will - but it may take me longer to get the courage and discipline.

Second Assessment....

I always find the observations of my tutors challenging, but then that is what they are supposed to be doing when they read our work and then push our decisions, imagery etc. They make us justify our writing without emotional attachment or favour.If it works how well? If not why not and how could it work?

          It was relief that made me feel so up when I sent in the last assessment; don’t get me wrong I wasn’t happy with what I’d written, because I never am, but I felt that at least I had put together something – at least. I pressed send and felt good. It was done and I would wait for the observations.

          The assessment came back midway through the first manoeuvres with the next chapter and I was feeling the momentum of the work and exploring; feeling like I WAS making headway. I read the assessment and it all came crashing down. It felt like the only movement I had made in the course was not to repeat myself…a basic error which I always make at the beginning of every course and always in the first assignment. This time it was about the sound of the words and although I read aloud what I had written and in my head saw clearly what I was thinking, it did not transfer to the page. I think I make the basic mistake that it is the meaning that holds my attention whereas what this course needs is a dual meaning and sound – soft, hard, repulsive or welcoming. I may be wrong but that is how it translated.

My first reaction was to give up – an extreme. But I have always felt that although this course would add greatly to my repertoire and give me more discipline, I have always feared it.I simply do not think poetry....I recognise great poetry but I recognise great acrobatics but would never launch myself at a vaulting horse!

          For twenty four hours I felt deflated and pushed away the desire to walk away – knowing that it was childish and emotional! Then I re-read the assessment and slid back to my work and the computer screen. I worked through each piece, rereading and thinking about what Lesley had written. I took the plunge and ventured into each piece and did the rewriting. I have now put the pieces (revised) away in a separate file and will return to them when the time feels right.

I am yet to be convinced that I am anything more than a prose (wannabe) writer. However, I think the discipline and hard work would greatly enhance my writing and help in the degree and remaining courses. Should that not be enough? It should be. If I write some poetry that works, or works well then that will be a miracle and a bonus. For now I need to work and put in the hours, thinking and reading and writing.