Journal Entries
Civilised
Posted May 11, 2006
The lizard and I are getting hitched on June 1st.
N
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Latest reply: May 11, 2006
Sailing by
Posted Oct 16, 2005
No, not back, not yet. No money, see? I'm still not back in work. But I will be.
I'm on a mood stabaliser now. I could be annoyed that it took two years of trying antidepressants that made me manic before they thought to try something different. But I'm not. The relief is too great to be annoyed. So that's good. Life is good and I'm writing again. Writing makes me miss this place more.
I'll leave you with something to think about, from the new writing...
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Latest reply: Oct 16, 2005
Interesting times...
Posted Mar 25, 2005
Monday before last I woke up in not such a good frame of mind. I'd skipped a few of my tablets so that I wouldn't end up manic and it had made me dip. On the way to work there were creatures, big rat like things, on the edge of my vision, moving in disturbing ways and watching me and the trees looked so sad it made me cry. I arrived at work and had to turn around and come back home. G came with me because I was distressed and afraid of catching the bus home without her. You know how it is when there are hallucinatory creatures watching you from the bus rout...Anyway we got to talking on the way home, well mostly I gibbered and she listened, but we decided that we needed to move house. If being as unbalanced as I have been this last year is going to be a continuing pattern we need to be closer to our folks. We need to be where I can remember how to be happy and where she has some help looking after me. It is a hard thing to admit that I need looking after and harder still to think that it can be a job that is too big for one person to do alone. So, anyway, decision made we found a house to look at in the town where G grew up, ten minutes walk from her parents and made an appointment to look at it the next day. It was perfect. Tiny, but perfect. We took it.
That is why I now sit two days away from moving to our new house, surrounded by boxes with paint in my hair. It's all happened a bit quickly but it seems to be the right decision. I haven't had a bad day since that Monday and I'm off the tablets for now. I haven't been that sane since October.
Living in the valleys has certainly been interesting. Not good, you understand, but interesting. And now we're moving. No more bleak grey winters and horizons that close in when you're not looking. It's only now that we are going back home that I realise how much I've missed waking up to seagulls screaming outside my window and views that go all the way out to sea and disappear into mist and wonder.
We're going home.
We're going to be happy.
We're not going to have internet access.
We'll come back, one day.
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Latest reply: Mar 25, 2005
down with a bump
Posted May 12, 2004
These weekends at uni are strange creatures. As soon as they are over I slide back out of that world, take off the mask of writer and shrink back into this me. Smaller and so afraid of the things I might never be. Three oblivious days since dinner at the prof's, nothing done, nothing written. I've said goodbye to my cotierie, they're all done and heading for graduation and I can't even see the end of the first draft. There is no room to write when everyone else needs so much of me and writing seems selfish and small. And it's hard to write when not bleeding hurts. I can't keep out the static of half thoughts and fuzzy images and under it all there is the compulsion to go and find the sharpest knife...but that's no answer, to write my shame on my body in indelible lines, because it doesn't help enough.
I wish it was different.
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Latest reply: May 12, 2004
So, it goes.
Posted Apr 22, 2004
Althea isn't going as badly as it could be. 3000 words on monday, only 2000 yesterday, but I didn't start till gone midnight. That brings me up to 10,000 so far for this submission and I really want to double that and finish up 1909. I'll probably leave it till Monday to submit the work so that I can write more on Sunday. It's pushing the deadline, which was rather vaguely set as 'this week', but Tony probably won't notice.
I have come to the definite conclusion that research is a b*tch. Oh, not all research. I only write about things I'm interested in so researching is usually fun. No, I mean the sort of bloody detail that seems like it will be easy to find and ends up eating an hour of writing time. Especially, in my case, plants. Every time I want to mention a plant in the text I have to find out: when it was introduced to England, what it looks like, what properties it has, when it flowers, if it is picky about soil, any folklore associated with it and what its meaning is in the language of flowers. Since the meaning is normally the important bit I can end up researching a dozen plants before I find one that will work. And I can't even do the research ahead of time since I don't know precisely what I'm going to need before I get there.
I also ended up researching Midsummer pagan celebrations and folklore which led, by a strange tangent, to reading a great deal about how a Hand of Glory would be made and used. Not at all relevant but great fun. I also found out about the most magical plant ever - ask me, go on, ask.
I keep reminding myself that this is a first draft and it doesn't have to be perfect but I don't want to be too sloppy and leave myself with an insurmountable mess to work with when I get to the second draft (oh fabled day). I do have to get on and write as much as possible but I'm not sure how much quality and detail I should be willing to sacrifice to do that. It is a bit panic making that I'm still not done with 1909 but I know that not every year will need to be told with such detail. pleaseohpleaseohplease.
If anyone feels a burning desire to read it it's in the usual place.
N
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Latest reply: Apr 22, 2004
nadia
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