Good books take us somewhere else

I've reposted this from the awesome Neil Gaiman however I've used the original image created by a Russian artist.

Motherhood, Masters and Mantras

My blog was published in the last addition of ML&S magazine which is a subtle reminder that I should really get blogging again. Here is an image of it.

Paulo Coelho

Read this and thought I would share.

http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2011/02/20/character-of-the-week-petrus/

Chinese New Year

As we welcome the year of the Rabbit I wanted to mention one of my favourite novels, Wild Swans by Jung Chang. Based in China and spanning three generations Wild Swans is the biography of Chang's Grandmother, mother and finally her own autobiography. This family drama is framed by communist China and it is that framing that makes this story epic. Well worth reading.

Late

I waddled through the trees like a lame duck looking for water. Golden leaves lay at my feet. Fleetingly I thought about kicking them but getting my legs to lift off the ground was struggle enough. Instead I inhaled the crisp, clean air and tried desperately not to think about the tardy baby asleep in my womb.

Now six days late his entrance was pretty much all I could think about. My mantra, a watched baby never shows his face, was wearing thin and the brisk walk was doing nothing to take my mind off my burgeoning load. If anything I was wondering where the nearest cafe was so I could sit down in a warm, centrally heated dining room with a mug of molten hot chocolate and a wedge of sticky chocolate cake.

Magnet walked happily beside me.

"You haven't finished your novel have you mum?"

"No, not yet darling".

"Are you upset about it?", she probed.

I paused, partly to catch my breath, partly to consider my answer. Do I tell her it's OK to make pacts then break them? Do I tell her that life often gets in the way of us completing our dreams? Do I tell her we should not expect too much of ourselves, instead we should opt for a life of mediocrity so that we never get disappointed? I decided against hormonally charged dramatic statements, instead saying,

"Just like this baby, my novel is late and I'm OK with that."

She smiled and walked on. I looked down at my bump, swallowing at the white lie. It didn't feel OK that the baby was late, not then anyway. But I knew that soon it wouldn't matter and I knew it would be the same with my novel.

Depression in the arts

Recently best selling author Marian Keyes opened up about depression in her latest newsletter. Marian wrote her last newsletter in January and told of a bout of "crippling depression" that had rendered her useless. The newest newsletter, her first since January, tells of a long depressive episode so horrendous that she had been "knocked sideways" by "an almost irresistible desire to be dead." Indeed Marian Keyes had not written since this depressive episode started and still cannot write. Her newsletter was all the more sad because she tried to rationalise her feelings and explain that she realised she was privileged and lucky and that journalists will probably think her selfish and stupid.

It has been well documented that writers are more prone to depression than the nation as a whole. I wonder whether people with depressive tendencies gravitate towards writing or whether the conditions needed to write; extended periods of solitude and reflection, exacerbate and cause depression?

Surely it is a mixture of both?

I don't tend towards melancholy when I write however I've always found it difficult finding the time so I do not have long periods of isolation that many writers do. Since leaving work three weeks ago, to start maternity leave, I have enjoyed the solitude that has allowed me to put pen to paper although I know this time is fleeting and soon the house will be filled with the coos and cries of a newborn. Perhaps if I were sat, day after day, with my thoughts for company this would be a very different blog. Even in this short period of time I have become more inward looking.

The list of writers touched with depression is impressive; Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemingway, Sylvia Plath, Lord Byron and F. Scott Fitzgerald to name but a few. I wonder then, does depression aid the writing process? Is depression to a writer what drugs are to some rock stars - something that not only aids the writing process but that is a necessary part of it? This is not the case for Marian Keyes and I doubt the case for others. Indeed this time alone has taught me that I must interact with people to keep me sane, to keep the dark thoughts pushing the light ones away.

Writing and moving

Writing a novel and moving home have many similarities. They both seem like wonderful ideas to start with but, as the story grows and the boxes multiply, they begin to feel like summitless mountains.

As the plot of my novel starts to resemble a tangled web of disparate ideas my once methodical packing turns into a frenzied rush of throwing anything into any box. Days become weeks and the formally precious marker pens lay abandoned on the floor while the computer sits, untouched, awaiting my return to normality.

Normality has yet to return.

Soon unpacking begins, along with frequent outings to soulless stores that seem to fry the brain even more, pushing any morsels of creativity left further out to sea.

The chaos has abated, for now, and I'm back to writing. I at least wrote this.