The Diary Experiment

I am conducting a writing experiment on myself.  On Thursday I began to keep a diary which I will constantly update throughout the day. The length of the experiment is one week. Every thought deep or shallow, every event big or small will be documented in full. This is a departure for me as I keep notes in tattered copybooks and ideas on scraps of card but never a diary.

It may seem a bit unusual for someone who writes (a bit) not to keep one, but I haven’t kept a diary since I was 16 and then after a few months I had to burn it one day when no one was home. I was rather worried  because as someone who has always been a bit on the scatty side it was likely I would leave in where it could be found and read. Then I would be in more trouble than I could ever imagine!

 

Looking back now the diary was harmless enough, pages packed with teenage angst and tales of being misunderstood. I have always been a free spirit even if at that age most of the free spiritedness had to stay in my own head. There were a few incidents of experimenting with alcohol which were actually quite funny now and a few tales of mine and my friend’s experiments with boys. Not forgetting one about criminal damage.

Well it wasn’t exactly criminal damage. It was one Sunday when a gang of us got together and my friend Jim and I decided that it would be a laugh to dress Jim up as Prince. So as he was already wearing a black coat, I got two tassel scarves and tied one around his head and the other around his neck and played whatever Prince track was in the charts then on my portable stereo. I thought to complete the look he needed a mock guitar so I pulled up a no dumping sign from the road side and he used that to perfect his look and moves. I wish camera phones were around then.

Anyway the diary experience put me off writing one again. I thought that the safest place to keep any thoughts or memories or ramblings was in my own head. But I thought as I wasn’t getting the time I would like to write as much as I was before aunty B took ill and when I did write it was coming from somewhere rather rushed and stressed. I thought if I record every thought and deed for a week and see what is actually spinning in my head it might actually be a very useful exercise in more ways than one. It could relieve the little bit of stress I can feel from time to time so it would be a therapeutic exercise, it could help me look at stuff differently, and also perhaps bring a new angle to my writing.

As it stands I have my project which is fiction, I have this friendly blog and the frequent use of the communicator messaging in work where we send instant smart and cheeky messages directly to each other trying to outwit each other’s wit. A complete diary is hitting a completely different spot.

I am going with the free association theory, whatever comes up goes down. I have even managed to argue out a few things with myself so it is certainly bringing something new to the table as they say. Next Thursday I will read it back and see do I recognise myself.

I am not doing any read back at all. No checking the page I just turned for continuation I just go. I am not, as far as I can, holding anything in short term memory so I can get a real view of the inside of my head in four days time. This is helping resist the temptation as I know I will get a kick out of the full picture on Thursday.

I am quite interested as to what I might say about work when I am totally unbridled inside this turquoise notebook. Especially with some of what has been going on lately. It been a great time to observe certain human behaviours shall I say. I will have to be careful I don’t leave the thing on my desk at lunchtime or go home without it.

 I could even end up having to burn this one too. If anything interesting comes up I will let you know but I may end up editing just in case I come across as a serious nutter and you never visit me here again. Or indeed my friends, if I haven’t scared them off send for the white coats to drag me away from this keyboard. All shall be revealed! (Maybe)

I don’t feel I can end this one as I usually do what with the sad events in Norway this weekend so I will send  a thought of sympathy and compassion to all who are grieving and a prayer for their loss.

S.

Look What I Got!

I got a lovely surprise this week. My blog received a nomination for the Liebster Blog award!          This came to me from http:// Mammydolittle.blogspot.com.

To receive a nod like this from ‘one of me own’, another Lady blogger was so beautiful as I am not around the blogsphere very long and someone found me and liked my ramblings enough to do this. On the way I found some other great blogs via mammy dolittle such as http://muminmeltdown.blogspot.com and http://polythenepram.blogspot.com. Nice to meet you girls!

The Liebster awards are for little blogs with less than 300 subscribers in order to share the blog love and spread the word.  

So here are the Liebster rules for nominations.

1. Post Blog displaying the award and then link to who awarded you.

2. Choose your own blogs to nominate and let them know they have been awarded.

3.  Hope this gets new favourites for everyone to follow.

4. Spread the blog love.

Here are my nominees:

www.caroloates.com.

Carol has published her first book, Shades of Atlantis but first and foremost is mum to her boy Eric and she has blogged beautifully about both Eric and writing.

www.twentyorsomething.com.

I love this blog! She has a wonderful blog writing style.

www.lamusewritersandartistsretreat.com.

This is a great blog. Its fun and also a really cool family blog as well as being about the retreat. Also it’s their fault I blog, right John.

www.sarahdeming.typepad.com/spiralstaircase

This lady has some great recipes in her archives to check out as well as being one true inspiration in the last few months.

Well the weather this week has been lovely and all my little seedlings are reaching up and having a look at the world. My little herbs are doing well so that will be fun using them from their little box. I have the mint in a pot of its own as it is what gardeners describe as aggressive. This, in aging hippie speak, means mint likes the idea of owning the entire garden, and will spread like wildfire if left to express itself. So if mint lives in its own pot it is better for all concerned. I am still looking forward to the day when I infuse my own mint tea. When that time comes I will let you know how that went as it will take a few attempts to get it right. I will either smell like a toothpaste factory from drinking it too strong or end up with warm water a ‘hint of mint’.  Ne’er mind.

Keep smiling,

Lost for Words

Hello blogsphere, I’m back. It’s been a few weeks I know but as my twitter friends know, I managed to wreck my right shoulder and arm and ended up out of circulation.  However, thanks to intense acupuncture and a session of bio energy healing I am back and so happy.
Due to the nature of this injury, I was laid up in a way that surprised me. There was so little I could do. I spent most of the time applying Chinese medical balms and the rest of the time taking twice as long as usual to do anything.

What I found hardest to handle was having my words taken from me. I couldn’t read anything. The injury meant I couldn’t hold a book up or bend my neck down to read. Even a newspaper was impossible. And if that wasn’t bad enough I couldn’t either type or hold a pen. My fingers went numb and I even had to eat with my left hand which meant by the time I negotiated each fork full to my mouth the meal was cold by the half way point! I was trapped in a wordless world. And there is no greater agony.

I missed books. I missed the joy that flows from the second you open a book. The smell of the ink, paper, glue combination followed by the anticipation of what this author is about to offer you in terms of their voice, their language and their beautiful story telling. I missed the debate, did I like the ending which character drew me, and drew me enough to stay with me long after I smiled at the last scene and the last page.

I missed writing even more. I could feel a Ferris wheel of words in my head but I had no way of getting them out.  A dam had been built when the energy blocked in my arm. I thought of the thrill of seeing the scene in my head, feeling the flow down into my hands and then this joy of seeing the same scene in my words looking back up at me, my creation.  This was taken from me.

Then I knew why. And there is always a why. I was doing so much in a way that was soulless.  I have to practice my calligraphy, I have a neck piece to make, I need to get the blog up by such a time so I can get on with this, I must finish this book and get on to another. In the midst of this speed I was losing something, I could feel it. I chose this point in my life’s journey carefully so I could write how I always wanted to.  But I erred. I started to befriend rushing around and in doing that I was losing my way.  So, I believe, I was stopped in my tracks and got the time to think, learn, see and love words again.

Well, lesson learned.  I have learned to love again. Words must be free to bring me to the place where maximum joy waits. The place where I appreciate how blessed I am to want to express what I see in my mind’s eye and hopefully someday soon share it and give back what I have enjoyed in reading what has danced from the creativity of a fellow lover of words.

Does time matter? Yes as long as I fill my time with what makes me smile, inside and out. Happiness is everywhere.  I have never been a sprinter. Now more than ever, I never want to be. If today brings me 50 words or 500 words or 5 words I will love them all. And I will stroll along with my words appreciating our path together. This is my journey and I am going to love every wonderful minute of it. I am back, but back as I should always have been, a smiling and happy aging hippie.

Keep smiling,