Finding a balance for A215

Real life does get in the way of creative writing, it turns out! Looking after an old lady, even from a safe distance, is difficult. I speak to her, and all the concerns and all the problems of the past tend to creep in. Now she's phoning before dawn every morning to tell me she's all right, although I can't do anything about it if she's not...

I have written about her in a piece of life writing for TMA04 for A215 and it's helped me realise those feelings are legitimate. I don't think I'll be doing life writing again any time soon, though! Anyway, the TMA. My tutor has suggested that we a) attempt the present tense and b) that we be ruthless with adjectives and adverbs. I'm enjoying both, though writing about the past in the present tense seems weird to start with. It does make description very immediate though, and I like that. The description part is a challenge with a limited range of adjectives. I booted it over to a fellow student for a mutual critique, and she managed to find several adjectives that I could live without. Changing small sequences of words increases the power enormously. One other thing I wasn't sure about was her comments on where I was in the piece, as I sound very unemotional and if it's autobiographical, where am I? It made me work on me in the piece, putting my feelings in as well as my voice.

Then, to explain to the reader, I put three words in, that still crush me. Léonie is dead. It was Steve's birthday, my husband who died the year before Léonie, and then it hit me, that's what Hilda is in my life, she is a link to these people that I loved and whose deaths shattered me for years. So Hilda is dying, and I'm grieving for them, I'm loyal and helping for them, not for the embittered old bag who on several occasions has wished me dead.

I was looking back over this course, and how I have managed it, what I have learned over the last months. I have learned that it's OK to struggle, even fail; it's OK to take chances, experiment; it's important to read more widely and read good literature. I recently picked up a crime thriller and it's literally badly punctuated, the dialogue is sloppy, the pace is uneven. And all enjoyment, admittedly, is muted - but I am enjoying books and authors that I wouldn't have tried before. So, if you are planning to do A215, be aware, it may change your reading habits! I have also written 20k of book 2 so am still writing 500 words minimum every day (more like 1000 most days!) That has probably been my biggest gift from A215, getting a writing habit. If I can't think of anything to say, I work on a TMA or short story. If I can't face that either, I go and highlight a bit of the Big Red Book and do one or two of the exercises. Keeps the habit going.

55,500 words and some lifewriting

Well, I've alternated between family phone calls and talking to the hospital. In the in between bits, I've managed to write a few words here and there but they do add up. I've started the backstory to Emma's strange, lonely experience running a B&B now. I think that the backstory will make about 25-30k and then, maybe, I can weave it through the contemporary, linear narrative. I hate those books where you jump about all the time, so I'll look at a more natural way to do it. through memory or dialogue, maybe.

This is a very first draft bit of backstory:

Emma opened her eyes. She was lying in a pool of very dim light, just enough to obscure the rest of the room. She moved her arm a fraction, to reach for Charlotte, who would, of course, be there. Her arm was heavy, and turning her head she could see the snowy plaster that covered her arm from hand to shoulder. She lifted the other arm, twisting it a little. It had black bruises on it, and a drip, but was otherwise still there. The chair by her bed was occupied by her father, his eyes black in the dim light, grey hair and eyebrows bushy, his mouth moving. She strained to hear what he was saying, before she realised he was crying.
‘Dad?’
‘Emma.’ His hand, strong and dry, clutched hers. The skin on his palm and fingers always felt as if it had been polished, buffed smooth on thousands of pages a week. ‘Emma, don’t try and talk, just go back to sleep. You’ll be better in the morning.’
As Emma closed her eyes, her mind started to search for Charlotte. She hadn’t seen her, maybe she was looking after Mother. She could feel Charlotte there, somewhere nearby. ‘N’night, Char.’ The whispered words drifted around her own head, maybe reached Dad as he squeezed her hand. N’night, Em.
Emma was awakened for what seemed like the tenth time by a nurse shining a light into her eyes. The room was bright, sunshine slanting in onto the shrunken shape of her father, asleep, his face almost as grey as his hair in the morning light.
‘Dad?’
He jerked like a marionette, and opened his eyes. The nurse’s cool fingers touched her wrist. ‘How is she?’
‘Improving. I’ll leave you to talk.’ Her gaze seemed full of meaning as she locked eyes with him.
‘Where’s Char?’ Emma’s first word had been Char. Charlotte’s first word had been an approximation of biscuit.
‘Charlotte was in the accident too.’ Of course. Charlotte couldn’t let Emma have an accident and not have one too. Emma’s lips stretched tight skin on her face as they tried to smile.
Her father took her hand in both of his, squeezing, his hands shaking a little. Emma stared at them. They looked so wrinkled and stringy in the light from the window. These hands had once lifted her onto windowsills, to see out of high windows. They looked like they could barely hold their own weight. ‘My dear, dear Emma.’
Charlotte’s thoughts drifted up from the back of her brain. What have you done now?
‘When can I see Charlotte?’
He spoke, but the words were fizzing and popping like lemonade in a glass, they didn’t make any sense. The words made him cry, his head bowed as if he was ashamed, as if he was hurt inside. Maybe Dad had been in the accident too.
Emma let her head fall back on the pillow, let him cry. She was very sleepy, very tired and confused, and he was getting annoying, sobbing into her hand. She pulled her hand away and let the sleepiness wash over her. It was strange without Charlotte, but if she wriggled the fingers out of the end of the cast she could still feel her there.

It's keeping my imagination going, anyway. I have also managed a bit of lifewriting, around 1200 words, towards the TMA. All in all, a productive weekend.