books

I’ve been going to physical therapy with a group of oncology patients for a couple of weeks now and have noticed that while mornings are often much better in terms of energy, afternoons are now improving. I’m not as tired as I was during the first afternoon training. I take this to be a good sign.

Upon my return home from Gladstones, the eldest son told me that I could transform his former bedroom into a writing space. Something I hadn’t even thought of doing because it was always his room, a lot of his things are still in it, and perhaps it’s that mother thought in my head that held the space for him just in case. But, as I was reminded, it’s been a year since he moved out. Birds spread their wings, they leave the nest, and go discover the sky.

So finally, after more than twenty years of writing at the dining table and having to move my mess when it’s time to eat, I have this space where the books I am reading can be left as they are. Where my pens and pencils don’t have to be tidied up and where when I am done for the day, I can close the door and let the projects I’m working on percolate.

I can’t help but think again about Virginia Woolf talking about a room of our own and how women who write need this kind of space.

Before I went to Wales, I downloaded a book by Joanna Penn. In the past, I’ve read books on writing that made me go: Oh, that’s nice. But it doesn’t work for me. Joanna Penn’s “How to Write A Novel” is perhaps the first book on novel writing that’s made me stop and say: I recognize that. For one, Joanna Penn calls herself a discovery writer. She talks about how overwhelming the process of writing a novel can be when you’re like her(like me). It was like a letter from a friend saying: look, I get it. Now tell me why you’re not finishing that novel. For me the greatest thing was a sense of overwhelm. I’d get bogged down in the details and before I knew it, I was lost. (I have a bunch of novels with great beginnings where the middles and ends are all squashed together because I got caught in a tide of overwhelm and couldn’t see where things were going anymore.)

But here I am. It is the beginning of the week. I have returned from my therapy class feeling energized and thinking: you know, you’ve come this far. Look at the horizon. Can you see where this story is going? Can you see how it’s going to end? Can you see what the story is about? Coming on close to 50,000 words, it’s really getting there. (Alarming thought.)

I think of how my sister would tell me to write whatever I wanted to write and to never give up. If my sister were still here, this is the novel I would give her. I would tell her, this is the novel I wrote because of all the conversations we’ve had and which we continue to have in my head. There are moments I just wish I could turn to her and say: what do you think about this?

What’s kept me from finishing novels in the past? At the heart of it has always been fear. Fear I wouldn’t have the right words. Fear I wasn’t up to the task. Fear I would screw up.

It’s funny how my sister’s legacy continues in the words she used to speak to me. My youngest son has had some difficult moments at school (understandable in the light of everything) but I’ve said these words my sister used to say to me: “It’s your dream, do something about it.”

Since I got this room, I’ve been coming up everyday to write words because when we see each other again, my sister will probably ask me what I did about my dreams and I don’t want to say that I was too scared or too overwhelmed to do something about it.

Blessings and peace to you who read this. Agyamanac Unay for stopping by.

I am learning how to do freehand protraits–relying less on a grid and training my eyes and my pencil. I still need to work on proportions, but the results have been surprising. Did you know that turning a picture upside down will actually help you focus more on shapes and lines and will give you a more satisfying rendition than if you are looking directly at a thing? For most of 2023, I had to practice at home by myself as my energy would often run out and I would end up having to skip art classes.

Towards the end of 2023 though, I was able to attend five art classes (what luxury). It became important to me to go to class with a goal. What is it that I’m struggling with, right now? What questions can I ask and how can I put the answers to practice when I am unable to attend class?

There are so many similarities between making art and writing and life and the parallels fascinate me. Because we often start out with a draft–with an idea of where we would like to go–or in my case, I sometimes find myself caught up in an emotion and I let that emotion move my body and take me to what comes out on the canvas. I suppose I am very much a pantser on canvas as I am a pantser with words. Portraiture though is teaching me the discipline of looking and seeing and translating what I see in lines and shadows and angles on the page. We don’t know what we’re making until we see the finished project and even then, it can be tempting to keep tweaking. For the artist, the art is learning when it’s time to stop. There is no such thing as perfection in art, simply the question of: have I managed to convey what I wanted to convey? And does the meaning the viewer attaches to the image make me say: Oh…that interpretation works just as well.

It is satisfying though when you get your meaning across and it’s the same with working with words. Stories work when they mean something to the maker and to the person reading or receiving the story. And in this way, stories become an act of co-creation. The writer creates the world, the characters and the story, but the reader attaches meaning to it and the art becomes the ability to draw the reader in and invite them to create together with the writer.

I’m not a very good fanfiction writer but I find myself in awe of writers of fanfiction who expand the universe and the worlds of stories that have captured their imagination. To have a fanfiction made of your work is, I think, the best possible compliment an artist can hope for. Why? Because it means you’ve made something that has become full of meaning for another person to the extent they wish to co-create with what exists.

Life itself is an act of co-creation. We co-create together with God and with our fellow inhabitants of the earth and together we weave this massive story that is the story of humanity. And it sucks a lot at times. It makes us cry and feel frustrated at times. It makes us angry. It moves us. It makes us want to hit out and hurt someone sometimes. It makes us decide to take action. Co-creating means, we don’t just let life happen. We decide to take part in life becoming.

Reading back, I think this is what 2024 is shaping up to be for me. I spent 2022 trying to stay alive, trying to recover, trying to survive. My 2023, had me learning how to deal with setbacks. It had me on a path of discovering what it was that I really wanted to keep on doing. Here I am in 2024, still alive. I am present. I am doing what I need to do, here and now…bedhead and all.