Can I have my life back now?
I went the other day to look at something on my story website and nearly had a heart attack: it cannot possibly be more than SIX MONTHS since I last posted to A Secret Gate!!
Alas, it apparently has been. Life happens; sh*t also. And while I'm sure I've been written off in every quarter as a fly-by-night hack (not to mention that most specious of fan-fic writers, the WIP writer who doesn't keep up) I thought maybe I owed everybody who hasn't purged me from their f-list a reason for being such a deadbeat.
The last year has been one of those watersheds--way too much going on. We spent most of it in rites of passage. Welcomed a first grandchild--the delightful Baby Fletcher, born to our younger daughter and her husband a year ago October; and planned and executed the wedding in July of our beautiful older daughter, whose life is sometimes made both wildly dramatic and exquisitely painful by bipolar disorder.
It was a year of tumultuous emotion, and no few surprises, not the least of which was Baby Fletcher's astonishing ability to distract me (even from the womb!), and the realization that incipient in-laws could be such a pain in the ass that all one's best intentions and kindest gestures could be drowned in a sea of histrionics and narcissistic manipulation. In time I came to view Baby Fletcher's passive interruption of my everyday activities as a blessing; the in-laws were obviously a test of my character, from which I emerged both latently angry and disappointed, but with most of my integrity intact.
Then the recession (you know, that "mental" aberration we've all been having) arrived on the doorstep of Baby Fletcher's parents and his mama had to go back to work part time. Baby Fletcher now spends his mornings with me--7:30 to 1:30 every day. I greatly admire and envy anyone who can write whilst keeping an eye on a scrappy little one-year old--or anyone, for that matter, who needs constant attention. Very quickly I discovered my plans for baby-sitting in the morning and writing in the afternoon were the stuff of dreams. I was wiped!
Add to that the political campaigns of the last six months, and the racism, sexism, blatant ignorance and unbelievable stupidity that has characterized far too much of it, and I can say I was pretty much in a state. I couldn't create, I couldn't communicate effectively, I couldn't maintain any part of the writing life that has so gently sustained me over the past five years. I tried--I actually have been writing all this time--but I couldn't keep to a steady pace or keep my eye consistently on the ball. I said darkly to whomever asked: "When this year is over, I'm leaving the country." It was kind of a joke, but in the end it actually came to pass.
My husband and I just returned from a sojourn of two weeks in England! We had a wonderful time (despite the financial timing), and saw much that I hope now to add to my story by way of nuance. I think I am sufficiently rejuvenated physically and mentally to MAKE time for what I need to do now. I hope so, at any rate. Meanwhile, I wanted to share what I saw. I'd love to include pictures, but I have one those free accounts and I think I'm limited in that respect. In any case, I don't know how to do it. If anybody knows what I can or should do, feel free to advise!
Baby Fletcher is here, so I have to stop for now, but I'll be posting some of my travel diary soon. I want to talk about what I saw, and what it meant to me. Little spoiler: I visited Professor Tolkien's gravesite, and the Humblebee Wood in Winchcombe in which it's said he used to walk, and I met Rachel, the lovely girl who does the pictures for A Secret Gate, and her wonderful family. And I very unexpectedly came upon A Queen!
So I hope you will accept the travelogue whilst waiting for the next chapter of ASG; I do have a dozen or so pages done, including Merry's final day in Buckland and the preparations for the wedding at Great Smials, and I hope to start digging in this afternoon to finish it up for those who might still be interested.
Alas, it apparently has been. Life happens; sh*t also. And while I'm sure I've been written off in every quarter as a fly-by-night hack (not to mention that most specious of fan-fic writers, the WIP writer who doesn't keep up) I thought maybe I owed everybody who hasn't purged me from their f-list a reason for being such a deadbeat.
The last year has been one of those watersheds--way too much going on. We spent most of it in rites of passage. Welcomed a first grandchild--the delightful Baby Fletcher, born to our younger daughter and her husband a year ago October; and planned and executed the wedding in July of our beautiful older daughter, whose life is sometimes made both wildly dramatic and exquisitely painful by bipolar disorder.
It was a year of tumultuous emotion, and no few surprises, not the least of which was Baby Fletcher's astonishing ability to distract me (even from the womb!), and the realization that incipient in-laws could be such a pain in the ass that all one's best intentions and kindest gestures could be drowned in a sea of histrionics and narcissistic manipulation. In time I came to view Baby Fletcher's passive interruption of my everyday activities as a blessing; the in-laws were obviously a test of my character, from which I emerged both latently angry and disappointed, but with most of my integrity intact.
Then the recession (you know, that "mental" aberration we've all been having) arrived on the doorstep of Baby Fletcher's parents and his mama had to go back to work part time. Baby Fletcher now spends his mornings with me--7:30 to 1:30 every day. I greatly admire and envy anyone who can write whilst keeping an eye on a scrappy little one-year old--or anyone, for that matter, who needs constant attention. Very quickly I discovered my plans for baby-sitting in the morning and writing in the afternoon were the stuff of dreams. I was wiped!
Add to that the political campaigns of the last six months, and the racism, sexism, blatant ignorance and unbelievable stupidity that has characterized far too much of it, and I can say I was pretty much in a state. I couldn't create, I couldn't communicate effectively, I couldn't maintain any part of the writing life that has so gently sustained me over the past five years. I tried--I actually have been writing all this time--but I couldn't keep to a steady pace or keep my eye consistently on the ball. I said darkly to whomever asked: "When this year is over, I'm leaving the country." It was kind of a joke, but in the end it actually came to pass.
My husband and I just returned from a sojourn of two weeks in England! We had a wonderful time (despite the financial timing), and saw much that I hope now to add to my story by way of nuance. I think I am sufficiently rejuvenated physically and mentally to MAKE time for what I need to do now. I hope so, at any rate. Meanwhile, I wanted to share what I saw. I'd love to include pictures, but I have one those free accounts and I think I'm limited in that respect. In any case, I don't know how to do it. If anybody knows what I can or should do, feel free to advise!
Baby Fletcher is here, so I have to stop for now, but I'll be posting some of my travel diary soon. I want to talk about what I saw, and what it meant to me. Little spoiler: I visited Professor Tolkien's gravesite, and the Humblebee Wood in Winchcombe in which it's said he used to walk, and I met Rachel, the lovely girl who does the pictures for A Secret Gate, and her wonderful family. And I very unexpectedly came upon A Queen!
So I hope you will accept the travelogue whilst waiting for the next chapter of ASG; I do have a dozen or so pages done, including Merry's final day in Buckland and the preparations for the wedding at Great Smials, and I hope to start digging in this afternoon to finish it up for those who might still be interested.