Writing Prompt:

Write a story or poem inspired by a famous painting.

What I've learned this week: The Importance Of Keeping Fit...

The Importance Of Keeping Fit! 

As we have all been told, it is important to exercise while on lockdown in order to keep yourself fit and healthy.  The problem is that I didn’t do much exercise before lockdown.  In fact, my life wasn’t really all that different before lockdown to now, except that I went to coffee shops and ate less.

In the first week of lockdown, I started doing online yoga again for the first time in months. I also did the ‘soothing stretching exercises’ recommended by a video I found on Amazon Prime, aimed at ‘those with chronic pain caused by conditions such as fibromyalgia’.  These exercises appeared very gentle but the instructor was secretly an evil witch – I woke up the following morning feeling like I’d been wrung out by a beefy Victorian washerwoman. That instructor clearly had a short, fat poppet with badly cut hair and glasses in her back pocket.  Twenty minutes of these so-called ‘soothing stretches’ managed to inflame my entire body (and not in a good way). I spent the following three or four days hobbling round like a professional hypochondriac, convinced I’d got Covid-19 as every part of my body hurt.

However, a fortnight later, I started going for walks.  Counter-intuitive as it might seem, spending all my daylight hours, and quite a few night-time ones too, typing at a laptop tends to make me a tad stiff. Who knew?  Mother Nature was also being either exceptionally kind to the poor creatures confined to their houses and gardens, or exceptionally cruel, depending on your perspective. The weather was gorgeous.  My husband had been taking daily walks down to the local park and reservoir since lockdown began, adopting sensible social distancing measures of course.  So I decided to accompany him.

About ten minutes into every walk, my back started hurting.  I was sure I’d seen one of those van Tulleken twin doctors proving that exercise could cure chronic pain better than pills, and that was on TV so it must be true.  Therefore, I knew I only had to persevere and the pain would ease up.  

It didn’t. It got worse. So I came up with a genius idea: I would take the painkillers an hour before I went on the walk, giving them time to start working, and that would keep the worst of the pains at bay during the walk. If I did this for a week or so, I figured that my body’s natural alignment and muscle strength would return and I could stop taking the pills. 

After one week, I went for a walk without a paracetamol or ibuprofen crutch, and guess what?  My back ache returned with a vengeance!  Traipsing downhill through the wood near our house, I felt as if a goblin was walking behind me and hammering on the muscles below my waist with a lump hammer.

                                             

Well, it just hasn’t had enough time to work yet, I thought.  

A week later, I was mentally refreshed – the bluebells and wild garlic in the woods really are stunning, and the reservoir is a thing of true beauty under a bright blue spring sky, and the people who were keeping a safe distance away from us were all friendly and cheerful.  Who’d’ve thought a pandemic could be so pleasant?  So I stopped taking the painkillers again.

Rumpel-lumphammer was back, this time adding extra resonance by gently plucking my sciatic nerve with a pair of pliers.  As I lumbered down the hill, tripping over tree roots and cursing the van Tulleken twins ('Damn the van Tullekjen twins, however east-on-the-eye they might be! Call themselves doctors? They're nothing but bloody charlatans! And I bet this tree trunk is covered with coronavirus!), my knees made a sound like an old grandfather clock winding down.

So, here's what I achieved by two weeks of exercise:  

• hay fever due to the bluebells and wild garlic 
• a limp worthy of the hero of a 1940s romance 
• I’d ingested more painkillers than I would normally take in six months.  

So now I’m back to a ten minute limp down the canal path when no one is about, and fifteen minutes a day of ‘Yoga For extremely-unfit-middle-aged-beginners-with-fibromyalgia-and-the-kind-of -bodies-that-just-won’t-do-what-they’re-told  With Adriene’. Adriene is a woman whose video-ed yogic-contortions have impressed me in the past, though I am a long, long way from emulating them. She’s an American and talks too much which often makes me very tense with irritation (which is the opposite of what yoga should achieve), but I’ve learned to distract myself by counting the number of clichés she can pack into one yogic position (I counted twenty-eight this morning).

                                                      

Don’t get the wrong idea. I do sometimes move away from the laptop.  I have a frequent compulsion to bake cakes and talk to my little nephew by Google Hangouts, and I am teaching a couple of private tutees by Skype (yes, I am now able to use ‘multiple’ online video calling apps), and there is housework (which P is doing most of at present because I am in such pain – when I iron, I have to prop myself up against the table and take a ten minute breather between each item). 

And there is of course the ten hours of procrastination I have to fit in each day.

Well, someone has to do it!

Self-Isolation Recipes: Lime and Coconut drizzle cake

Lime and coconut drizzle cake

        

Ingredients
4oz/100g self raising flour, sieved
4oz/100g caster sugar
4oz/100g softened butter or spread (I used Flora)
2 eggs
zest of one lime stirred into flour
a handful of dessicated coconut 
For drizzle:
two limes (but one would do), juice squeezed into a cup
roughly same volume of caster sugar (or icing sugar) as lime juice
a few dessertspoons of canned coconut milk


Method
1. Grease a loaf tin and line base with baking parchment
2. Beat sugar and butter together until light and pale
3. Add eggs and beat into sugar mix
4. Fold in flour and lime zest
5. If you are using an electric mixer, you could probably just throw all ingredients into bowl and 'whazz it up', as Jamie Oliver would say.
6. Stir in the dessicated coconut, if using. I planned to use this, but discovered that my dessicated coconut was more than a year past it's use-by date, so I decided against it!
7. Bake in a moderate oven (mine is a fan oven and I put it on 180 degrees) for around twenty minutes, or until a skewer stuck in its middle comes out clean.
8. While it is baking, heat up the lime juice and around the same volume of sugar in a pan until sugar melts. Add the coconut milk. Stir well. Make sure it is hot before drizzling. If you want to test the syrup to see whether it is sweet enough, take a small teaspoon of it and let it cool on the spoon before tasting, to avoid burning your mouth.
9. While cake is still warm, tip it out of loaf tin, prick top all over with a fork, and spoon the lime and coconut syrup over the cake, letting it soak in.  Use up all the syrup.
10. Once cool, sprinkle with icing sugar if you want to.

What I've been reading this week: Haven Wakes by Fi Phillips

Haven Wakes by Fi Phillips


I first became aware of this novel, which is aimed at the 11+ audience and published by Burning Chair Publishing, when Fiona mentioned it on the Open University's Write Club Facebook page. I downloaded it onto my kindle partly out of a sense of writerly solidarity - I like to support new authors - but also because I too am writing a fantasy novel aimed at the same age-group.  I didn't even find time to read it until recently but I wish I'd started sooner as it turns out to be a lively, entertaining, imaginative read.


                                                   



The novel is set in a future version of our world, and begins excitingly with a mysterious shadow creature being chased and almost caught by two thugs and their mean, magical master, Kendra, who is searching for something.  As the narrative progresses, we discover that the magician is being employed by an even scarier magician, Winters, who is involved in the murder of the CEO of Haven Industries.  The murdered man's nephew, Steve Haven, is left at an unpleasant boarding school while his mother goes off to search for his missing father.  While his parents are gone, Steve is caught up in an increasingly mysterious and exciting adventure involving a magical place, Darkacre, attached to his own world but unseen by most 'workadays'.  He meets numerous fascinating and often frightening characters and learns things about his parents and his world.

The novel is the first in a proposed series, and it certainly caught my attention and sucked me into the narrative quickly.  Fi's style is fast-paced, compelling and readable - there are very occasional minor 'glitches' (too many characters are described as 'bone-thin', for instance), but only the sorts of things that people like myself, currently studying creative writing and engaged in a great deal of beta-reading, would notice.  The plot is original and there are some brilliant moments - I loved the fire imp, and Hartley was a wonderful character. There is genuine suspense and the action sequences are well-paced and well-controlled. Dialogue is plausible and helps to develop characters and move the plot along.  I haven't read the whole novel yet, but so far it has gripped me completely and I want to read on. I would have loved it when I was twelve or thirteen, and I am definitely enjoying it even now at my advanced age.

I hope Fi does write the sequels and I think this is a series that ought to find a loyal readership as I think it would appeal to any young reader who likes adventure, fantasy and intrigue, well-drawn characters and imaginative ideas.


You can find Fi at http://fiphillipswriter.com/

RATING:
Haven Wakes

**** 

Key:
*****      highly recommended - a 'must-read'
****         good - well worth taking the time to read
***           ok - will help to pass the time in a boring situation
**            not very good -  just about readable but flawed
*             not recommended - boring, offensive, badly-written or deeply flawed in some other way

Writing Prompt

Look in your fridge or fruit bowl or food cupboard.

Find ONE interesting item.

It might be a bit of cheese with a mouldy rind, or a single squashed grape, or a bowl of leftover mashed potato, or a whole perfect melon, or a slab of steak, or a jar of homemade jam.

Anything.  In any condition.

It just has to be one single item.

Jot down everything this item makes you think of - memories, associations, connotations, the obvious and less obvious.  Let your thoughts fly free.

Then write a poem or a story inspired by something in your notes.

What I've learned about writing this week: Self-isolation is just another way to procrastinate

Writers are famous for procrastination.  When we claim we have 'Writer's Block', we are just attempting to glue a fancy label on what is basically an unwillingness to just get on with it.  As every writer knows, deep down in their hearts, the only way to overcome 'Writer's Block' is to write.  To write anything. To write gibberish. To warm up the brain and wait it to find the right gear.
          People who don't write often think writing is easy.  After all, it's sit-down, indoor work. Most writers work at home, close to the TV, close to the fridge and the toaster, close to their beds...!  And it is certainly true that it is a much pleasanter way to pass your time - for those who enjoy it, at least - than emptying bins, serving in a cafe, laying bricks on a building site, filing, or sitting in a boring meeting.  [Though, to be fair, most writers earn so little that they often have 'day jobs' anyway - and then there are children to look after, caring duties, housework, dogs to walk, meals to plan, errands to run, etc].


                                                      



          Having said that, many people would consider the idea of sitting at a keyboard (or with a pen in your hand) for hours at a time to be tantamount to torture.  My niece would feel she was receiving cruel and unusual punishment if she was told she had to write a story.  Most of the teenagers I teach clearly consider any sort of writing, including 'creative writing', along with any sort of reading, to be a form of child abuse. I once left a good job so I could focus on my writing for a year, and I remember a colleague asking what I was going to do. When I told her, she looked horrified and said 'Oh, I couldn't stand that, just sitting around all day at a computer. It would drive me bonkers!'.  It's horses for courses.
          Which reminds me of something P once told me. He's a keen chess-player and he used to belong to a local chess club. A fellow member once told him that, while he was playing a game, an elderly man observing them shook his head, pursed his lips and said:  'Oh, I couldn't be doing with sitting there like that, for hours on end. My mind's too active for that game!'
          Even though you can sit in the warm and not get rained on, writing is mostly hard work.  It's surprisingly physically-demanding - typing for hours, particularly when you're not a touch typist, can be very draining.  And concentrating for long periods of time is exhausting.  I know this sounds absurd, but it is an act that is mostly wearying and unsatisfying, but there are moments of glorious bliss that make it worthwhile.
          Nevertheless, the proximity of the biscuit tin and the kettle, the ease with which you can make yourself a quick slice of cheese on toast or watch an episode of Futurama, does make it difficult to focus.  The lengths writers will go to avoid writing should give you an insight into how difficult it can be.  When the lockdown began, I think that most of my writing friends and acquaintances were, like many people, shell-shocked and in a state of low-grade anxiety that sapped their ability to work on creative projects.  But this has worn off for many of us now, as we adjust to the 'new world'.  Yet, while some people are now using their extra time to dive into their ongoing novels or write some poetry or keep a proper diary which they'll eventually turn into a fabulous piece of CNF (Creative Non Fiction), I'm still distracting myself with other things.
          Any other thing, in fact.
          I have no shortage of things I should be writing.  A coursework deadline is fast approaching and I have several half-written stories that I need to finish and select from.  I'm also supposedly doing the Write Club's monthly writing challenge, but I only managed a rubbish poem for February and a very short story for March.  I have piles of reading to do for the course as well as preparing for the 15,000 word End-of-Module piece due in October.  But do I do these things?  No.
          I began my attempt to focus by trying to catch up on all the posts on the Masters course online forum.  People had posted work needing feedback, or completed activities from the course material requiring contributions to discussions, and I thought it would be a good idea to work through the forty-odd unread posts on my screen and respond to as many as I could.  This was fine except that naturally I kept being sidetracked into non-writing-related conversations, mostly about Covid-19 and self-isolation.  And that's before I took a look at the MA course Facebook page, or the Open University's Write Club Facebook page, or the Write Club Forums where there were pieces of work requiring feedback.  For someone who doesn't think of herself as being social-media-savvy, I sure do seem to spend a lot of time on it!
        I've also been spending large chunks of every day texting, emailing, phoning and even video-calling friends and family, much more than I ever do normally. As you know, I'd never video-called anyone before lockdown!  People must be sick of talking to me.
          Anyone who has read this blog over the past few weeks will have an inkling of the other things I've been doing - inventing ways of using up leftover food, making children's toys out of toilet roll inner tubes, sorting the various documents on my various USB drives into folders (takes longer than you'd think), doing 'play' archery and wakeboarding on the Wii machine, preparing the lessons for my private tutees (whom I am teaching by Skype) in unnecessary detail, inventing new household chores and then beating myself up psychologically if I don't complete them, watching TV, looking at things unrelated to my writing on the internet (for instance, I spent an hour earlier working out the chronological order of the Roman Emperors for no good reason at all).  And writing this blog is a major procrastination activity.
          Twenty years ago, I began making a hand-stitched patchwork quilt.  I don't know how to make a patchwork quilt. No one has ever taught me, I've never read a book or watched a programme on it, and I don't have a sewing machine. I have no idea what possessed me. But nevertheless I began making this quilt.  After a few weeks, I got fed up and put it away for several years.  Since then, it's been dragged out of the cupboard once or twice over the years for a few weeks' sewing until I get sick of it again.  Guess what I've started doing this week?

                          

So, I might end up failing my Masters course but I will have a patchwork quilt made out of bits of old shirts, so that's ok...

What I'm reading now: Alice Munro

Alice Munro Dear Life

In an effort to focus my reading on the Masters course I am doing, I have started to read this collection of Alice Munro's short stories, and though I'm only halfway through, I felt I had to write about it here.  Munro is a Canadian author who won the Man Booker International Prize in 2009 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2013, and she is generally considered to be one of the finest writers of short stories in her generation.  Dear Life was published by Vintage in 2013, though several stories in it were first published elsewhere.

                        

                        

I had never read any Alice Munro stories before I began Dear Life, though she had been recommended to me as a brilliant short story writer several times.  What I have discovered is that I wish I'd started sooner. There must be something in Canada's atmosphere that produces terrific women writers: Margaret Atwood, Mavis Gallant, Alice Munro, etc.  She reminds me a little of Carol Shields and Anne Tyler in her style, though she has her own distinctive way of writing.
          What struck me immediately was how 'old-fashioned' her writing is. She breaks many of the 'rules' we have been advised to follow on the Masters course.  For one thing, many of her stories are characterised by having omniscient narrators who have an overview of events, but who don't take it upon themselves to comment too much on what is happening.  There is a certain psychic distance established between reader and characters that might be off-putting in a lesser writer.  She does a great deal of telling, whole pages passing by with barely any showing, but her telling is so astute and sensitive that it just doesn't matter. It didn't matter to me, anyway.  When she does use dialogue, it is spot-on; when she tells us what characters are thinking, she tells us just enough.  There is a lot left out of her stories; they are pared down to their essentials and nothing much happens in terms of 'plot'. They focus on the epiphanic moment, and are informed by the narrator's awareness of time passing, time wasting, time running out -  the limited nature of human existence.  
         This all sounds deep and therefore potentially dull, but I haven't found the stories I have read so far to be at all dull.  They have been quiet, thoughtful and psychologically insightful.  The characters, particularly the women, are vividly drawn, each an individual, and she doesn't try to tell us everything about them. She has the courage to step back and tell us just the things we need to know, leaving the epiphany to resonate with us long after the story ends.  These aren't flashy tales; there has been so far no twist-in-the-tail, no whizz-bang experimentation with tenses, viewpoints, peculiar imagery or unconventional forms.  The stories do jump between viewpoints sometimes, often briefly. 'To Reach Japan', for instance, appears to be from the pov of the husband Peter at the beginning, and it slips into the child Katy's pov at the end, but the majority of the story is told from Greta's viewpoint. 'Amundsen' is told in the first person, but somehow even this narrator seems omniscient, like someone recalling a past event from a position of superior knowledge and experience.  But despite the potentially distancing effect of this narrative voice, Munro's characters leap off the page. Even minor characters are utterly believable, their dialogue accurate and convincing, their behaviour plausible and acutely drawn.
      If you like fast-moving plots with lots happening, you probably won't like these stories.  They eschew the supernatural and fantastical (as far as I can tell so far!), and focus on small stories that could happen in the real world we all recognise.  There is a powerful sense of place in them too - most of them set in and around Ontario in Canada. They are simultaneously universal and particular.  There is a vein of quiet humour running through some of them, and an occasional hint of satire, but they don't provoke belly-laughs.  There is a poignancy about many of them, though they make you think about life rather than becoming depressed about life.  If I could write a story half as good as Alice Munro's, I would consider myself to have achieved something worthwhile, whatever mark it was awarded by my tutors on the Masters course.

RATING:
Dear Life 

***** 

Key:
*****      highly recommended - a 'must-read'
****         good - well worth taking the time to read
***           ok - will help to pass the time in a boring situation
**            not very good -  just about readable but flawed
*             not recommended - boring, offensive, badly-written or deeply flawed in some other way