A quest for quieter days

An exercise in deconditioning, deprogramming and rewiring

Without really noticing it, I’ve entered a new phase of life. A phase where I’m no longer required to be constantly available for three tiny human beings of my own making, and juggling that task with both paid work as well as my writing work.

If you’ve been with me for a while you’ll know that I had moments last year when I felt utterly lost after both my girls went off to university. Mothering is such an all-consuming role that even if you somehow manage, like I did, to keep a life going outside of parenting, this feeling of being needed for survival seeps inside you, and once the tiny human beings have left home and there’s no longer anybody around who need you in that same way, you may become confused about who you’re supposed to be.

Mothers learn to juggle, they become efficient. Half an hour is enough to send a bunch e-mails, translate a few hundred words, and at least open that document containing the first draft of the novel. Ten minutes is absolutely not nothing. In ten minutes you can get on with the book-keeping, pay a bill or tick something else off the list. Life becomes a hunt for moments in between school runs, deadlines, colds and fevers, signing permission slips, cooking, story time, comforting and reassuring, playground trips, and a thousand other things when we can get on with the to do-list, and perhaps, just perhaps, find fifteen glorious minutes to write.

I emigrated to the UK at the age of nineteen, which meant I had no family available to help out with childcare. Sleep deprivation was a constant, and the to do-list endless. I found myself always chasing my tail. And of course translation work was different back then, in the time before the machines took over. Work poured onto my desk in a constant deluge and as we were on the brink of financial ruin, I accepted everything, which meant I was in a constant heightened state of stress over meeting deadlines.

To give you an example, one evening half an hour before twenty people were about to turn up for a clothes swap (one way I worked out to help make ends meet) my youngest vomited all over me while I was at the same time on the phone with a less than understanding project manager who told me in no uncertain words that she NEEDED THE FILE NOW! I cleared up the vomit, did the work with my sick son crying on my lap and sent it seconds before the first guests turned up. It may sound efficient, but I was always on the edge of breaking point with no sign of relief in sight. I remain grateful that none of my guests mentioned the whiff of vomit on me.

Of course that’s all in the past now.

Or is it?

Because what has living in this flight-of-fight state for twenty years done to my brain? I kept going you see, with the same speed and the same ferocious energy as I had used to keep those three tiny human beings alive. I continued to set targets to work towards for short stories, submissions, children’s books, novel word counts, finding speaking opportunities and festival appearances, applying for grants and attending events.

It was only this summer, after a challenging July to say the least, that it dawned on me that I no longer wanted to rush through the days, and that perhaps I didn’t have to. Apart from it being a stressful way to live, it’s not very enjoyable. A phrase I found myself using far too often for activities I’ve always wanted to take up, aside from writing was: “I don’t have time for that right now.”

But who says I don’t?

The way I began making changes was with this idea of inviting more creativity into my life. I have a guitar I don’t know how to play, because “I just don’t have time to learn it.” I’ve wanted to start writing old-fashioned letters again, but “that would take too much time right now.” I’ve always wanted to learn how to draw even though I lack an innate knack for it, “but that will have to wait until I have more time.”

But where is this person who decides what time I do and don’t have? Well, that would me, wouldn’t it? The first thing I did then was to dispense with the to do-list that I’d write first thing of a morning detailing everything I wanted to get done in the day. I’d keep adding to it as the day went on, so that I never actually got to the end. Then I’d transfer the items that didn’t get done to the next day. How’s that for engendering a constant sense of failure?

Instead I decided to focus on work only, and whatever else was pressing, then it would be time to write. What’s more, I decided to step away from the screen whenever I’d start to become bleary-eyed, and there’s no more perfect break than to pick up the guitar, because at this point my fingertips are still too soft to be able to practice for longer than ten minutes.

I spent my first weekend with this new routine, or non-routine rather, at home sewing a bag, writing a letter by hand to my friend in Cornwall, which included a very bad drawing of a hare. I practiced some more guitar and read and swam in the sea. It was only after this first weekend that it dawned on me that what I’m actually engaged in is finding ways to quieten my nervous system.

I’m right at the beginning of this experiment, and I still wake up thinking “Today I need to this, and this, and this, and this, and this…” But these thoughts are impulses, and I deliberately stop myself from reacting to them. Instead the first thing I do is write my daily morning note on Substack, and then I write my morning pages.

This morning though, I was feeling so antsy that I realised there was no point in me even attempting to focus on anything, so instead I took my notebook and walked into the hills to calm my mind and do my morning pages sitting on a bench with a view out to sea. This meant that I didn’t get in front of my desk until 11. The reactive version of me is telling me off, saying I could surely have written a whole novel by then. But the me who’s learning to keep life smaller and quieter replies that it was both necessary and enjoyable to get out into the fresh air.

I’m basically engaged in an attempt to rewire my brain, a deconditioning or a deprogramming, and that’s going to take time. But I hope I’ll be able to stick with it, and I forgive myself for not finding my way here sooner. The shift from mothering helpless tiny human beings, to slightly less helpless human beings, to completely independent human beings that leave home is so gradual that I didn’t notice it happening until after the house had become quiet, and then I tried to fill that silence with an endless list of task, labelling them “urgent” or “important” in my mind, when really what had happened was the return of days for me to do with as I wish.

Photo by Javardh on Unsplash

My Substack read of the week was Submissions for the October edition are open by The Madrid Review, because it made me dig out and edit and submit an old story that was languishing in a folder. Perhaps you have something to submit too?

Submissions for the October edition are open!

In other writing news:

• Breaking news: I was about to hit “publish” on this post when I received an e-mail saying short story number six has been accepted. It’s called Drifting and it will be published by Wyldblood. This story has already had five rejections, so sixth time lucky it seems 💪🥂

• Had my first meeting with the publisher who has accepted The Legend of Maderwerth. Contract negotiations are under way.

• Received two rejections for picture book number three written this year. I’ve fallen out of the habit of writing them with my trip away, but at the same time I’m trying to fall into an entirely new creative habit that I hope will change how I live, so I’m not worrying about this.

• Made two quite big decisions not to do things this autumn. The first thing I’m not doing is going to Fantasy Con in Glasgow. The other I will tell you about another time, as I’m trying to cancel. Both these decisions have freed up tension and stress, creating headspace to actually get on with my writing-work.

• I began translating my Swedish prize winner Strandglas into English, just scribbling in a notebook. This will be a no-pressure pleasure project done in moments when I feel the need to step away from the screen or away from home in cafes.

• Submitted a piece of short fiction to Madrid Review.

• Finished compiling the research for Ruth’s Story, and wrote up the timeline in Excel. Today I have taken steps to start working on her voice. These steps involved me asking members of my trusty Fantastical Fiction writing group to e-mail me random questions about Ruth that I will answer in a notebook throughout August.

• Wrote 2000 words on a Swedish middle-grade. I had hoped to write more, chip away at it every day, but I’m learning to accept this new rhythm I’m slowly settling into, and with contract reading and the few bits of work I’m receiving and with it being the summer holidays, and actually having done a lot of work on Ruth’s Story instead this week, I’m happy with progress.

• Went to the launch of Cindy Etherton’s memoir Don’t Call This Fiction, which was held in the Old Court House in Brighton and was through invitation only. It was without a doubt the most moving book launch I have ever been to.

• Currently reading Unraveller by Frances Hardinge

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