You may be aware of Julia Cameron’s book, ‘The Artist’s Way’, which has become a go-to for creatives. Since its publication in the early 90’s I’ve flicked through it in bookshops, a friend was going to lend me hers until she decided she’d rather keep the notes she’d pencilled in the margins private, and I’ve loaned it out from the library numerous times. I finally bought a copy of my own a year or so ago with a book token I received for my birthday.

I still haven’t managed to complete the 12-week course which is at the heart of the book, but I think Cameron’s ‘The Artist Date’, a once-a-week solo outing somewhere that will fuel your creativity is an innovative idea. During Lockdown I discovered the joy of online creative writing Zoom workshops and I still continue to sign up to my favourite ones whenever I can. However, I’ve allowed myself a get-out clause from Cameron’s instructions by accepting that there may be long gaps between my dates because, despite my best intentions, life often gets in the way; and I have been fortunate that people have asked me to go to creative events with them and I count these as equally valid opportunities to re-fill my creative well.

Which is how I came to be in a cafe the other evening waiting to experience my first #splatnchat with Chloe@www.splatnchat.com

My friend Laura had invited me. She really is talented! Do check out her website to see the amazing cakes she and her husband, Martin, make @www.bakingthedream.co.uk

I was slightly nervous. This was out of my comfort zone and, although I was trying to ignore them, there were whispers, words, I can never quite unhear. And, as we all know, it’s the negative comments that remain embedded in our minds…

Having flown from the cosy nest of my small, primary school, the secondary school where I’d landed was a huge shock of screeching bells, rivers of older girls pushing against me and a never-ending rabbit warren of corridors, often leading to the wrong class. The art room was gloomy and felt foreboding; a cave where something lurked deep within. Early in the term we had to draw a still life, a flower in a glass jar. We had been given charcoal which I’d never used before. The twig-like stick snapped when I applied too much pressure, leaving accusatory smudges on the white paper; it skittered off in spidery lines I couldn’t control when I tried to use a lighter touch.

Our teacher stared at my offering.

“You really can’t draw, can you?”…

Chloe helped me to banish many of my artistic self-doubts the other night. Her energy and encouragement were infectious and fizzed around the room as she squirted white, peach and jewel green and blue whorls of paint on our paper plate palettes. She used a dot-to-dot method of painting each section of a Caribbean Island beach on her canvas, then waited while we copied them onto ours, cheerfully tweaking our mistakes with a flick of her paintbrush.

With an 80’s soundtrack thumping away in the background, flashing neon signs in acid pink, lime green and banana yellow on the walls, the optics glittering a rainbow of gin flavours behind the bar, it was a reminder that an artist’s studio can be a magical place.

Like Jean, the children’s book illustrator who lived down the lane from us when I was young. She worked in an old caravan hidden away in an overgrown corner of their garden. Occasionally, I was allowed to visit her once she’d finished work for the day. She’d slurp now-cold coffee from a paint splattered mug as I lightly ran my fingers over the forests of brushes, some large some tiny, in handle-less jugs, cracked clay pots and washed-out tin food cans, at the same time trying to count the number of colours and varieties of paper and paints that littered every surface; tubes of oils, tubs of powdered, watercolours and acrylics, pastels and chalks. I would crawl under the pitted, ink-stained wooden table scavenging for the paper cut-offs I’d been told I could use. It wasn’t prescriptive, it was fun. My daisy might be as tall as my tree but it didn’t matter; I wasn’t judged.

Sometimes, Jean doodled absent-mindedly while she asked me about my day and, when it was time to leave, she’d hand me a scrap of paper with a rabbit or an acorn, a toadstool or a mouse, drawn on it.

Back in my bedroom, I’d carefully hide such treasures in my special shell-encrusted box. I’d spotted it in the village gift shop one summer and had doggedly saved up my pocket money to buy it. I wove a story around it that it was crafted by a mermaid while she bathed her injured tale in a rockpool, waiting for the salt water to heal her damaged scales. Once successfully treated, the mermaid would be able to swim away, out to sea, at the next full moon.

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There have been many times when I’ve sat down at my laptop, determined to type something, anything, and create a post. I’ve imagined editing the piece, checking spellings and grammar, reading it through to myself, before taking a deep breath, clicking ‘publish’ and sending it out into the blogosphere.

However, I’ve hesitated each time. Partly through fear of how my words will be received, but mainly because I haven’t fully worked out the mechanics of my blog site.

And, perfectionist that I am, I feel that if it’s not done correctly or properly, I can’t let it be viewed until it is.

The only problem with this is that it could take me a long time to master the necessary IT skills and, despite useful suggestions from friends – thank you! – I still haven’t got it how I would like it to be. Meanwhile, my blogs remain unwritten and I grow more frustrated.

Until now.

I’ve decided to just go for it. Even if it feels a bit rough around the edges.

Usually, I tend to share personal, feel-good stories on my Social Media sites. I’ve always thought that if I’m quiet online, my followers would understand that life could be demanding my attention, not always in a positive way.

I don’t think I’ve deliberately or consciously left out such details. It’s just that it can take all my energy to work through such blips, with little left for creating engaging content. However, I’m so relieved once I come out the other side, all I want is to acknowledge the lovely things I’m fortunate to experience.

It’s different with my writing.

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I was lucky to master reading and writing from an early age. One day there were black squiggles on the page, the next they had formed words I recognised and could read aloud; my pencil-circles and lines untangled themselves into letters which I joined together to create words.

Even now, I still get that buzz when I open a new book, and settle down to read, or unscrew the lid of my pen, ready to write in my notebook. It still thrills me when I type my words on my laptop and then print them out, on the page.

My ideas and stories.

Finally, I feel ready to properly honour this craft I cherish.

I want to stare down my Inner Critic, and find my voice; one that is both authentic and unique to me.

And I would love it if you shared this journey with me!

Fiona xx

I first became aware of this towards the end of 2019 when numerous Instagram accounts I follow started highlighting Words they had chosen for the upcoming year.

As with so many of the challenges that pop up on Instagram, I couldn’t find much information about this one and the selected words, themselves, didn’t give much away. It seemed to become more and more of a competition between accounts, until I wondered if it was based on the most random word someone could pick, or the one that contained the most letters. I finally decided it was a scam when I came across an ad offering to generate exclusive words – for $50

I was then distracted by all things Christmassy. It wasn’t until the dust from the festivities settled in mid-January last year that I did some research. Through this, I found out that individuals can select words to use as a focus for the year ahead, for encouragement or direction, support.

I felt this was a positive exercise, one that might be beneficial to me. And, after much consideration, I settled on:

Imagine.

Imagine; especially with regard to my writing. Imagine creating a writing routine; scribbling ideas in my notebook; typing word after word on my laptop; completing a first draft – a second, a third; finding an agent; getting published. Imagine the descriptive sentences and paragraphs I’d write. Imagine my pride at achieving my most desired life-time goal; imagine the reviews, the awards and prizes I’d receive.

I knew that ‘Imagine’ could be effective in other areas of my life, too, but felt certain that if I was happily engaged in my writing, almost everything else would fall into place.

Then, Covid 19 struck. I barely wrote, I hardly read; all I managed was to stumble along, doing my best, day by day. As the year from hell dragged itself towards December, I felt the stirring hopes of a fresh beginning and dared to turn my thoughts towards a Word for 2021. I assumed you had to pick a ‘new’ word but felt that I hadn’t fully utilised ‘Imagine’, so I recklessly decided to use it again.

However, I soon discovered that my writing, my ideas, had all stagnated; there was virtually nothing for me to draw from. Worse still, I’d lost my nerve, was questioning whether I could actually write and who would want to read any of the rubbish I did produce. I came so near to giving up; closing my notebook, screwing the lid back on my pen. Until I had a brainwave: find another word!

Believe

In myself and all I choose to do as an individual. Believe in my ability to write; in all my ideas stored safely away, biding time for the right moment to reveal themselves to me. And, to believe that the ideas will come, that my characters will step onto the pages and speak my dialogue, live and love and work in the worlds I build for them.

To me, Imagine and Believe have similar connotations.

Imagine is softer, more dream-like. Believe is a stronger, more active word. ‘Believe’ is a challenge for me to accept or decline. The choice is mine…

For many, January can be a difficult month. Often it’s cold and wet, sometimes there’s snow and ice; the days are short, the mornings and afternoons dark. Not forgetting the financial fall-out from the Christmas and New Year festivities which are already distant memories.

I get all of that. But, still, I have a soft spot for January because it’s my birth month. I don’t doubt that my brother likes his August birthday but, to me, I’d find it difficult to consider new beginnings and resolutions well over halfway through the year in the heat and dust and weariness of that summer month. I love that mine is at the beginning of the calendar year, with those fresh twelve months stretching enticingly ahead, ready for adventures and dreams to fill the coming days and weeks.

Three years ago, I celebrated my fiftieth birthday. I opened presents, ate cake, drank Prosecco with family and friends. Then, when only crumbs remained on the plate, the bubbles had gone flat in my glass, and I’d thrown away the wrapping paper, I did a stock-take of my life. For various reasons, marriage and children have not been a part of my story; just one of those things. However, what gutted me most was that I haven’t had anything published in all this time -not even a letter to my local paper, never mind a poem in a women’s magazine, or a short story win in a competition. Self-publishing would have been better than nothing but there hasn’t been a manuscript to work with.

I began to doubt myself and to question how I could consider myself a writer when there was so little proof. Any ideas I did have suddenly seemed irrelevant; I was sure nobody would want to read the occasional drivel I did produce. I felt such a failure and an imposter: time after time I’ve said I want to write and yet I never seem to get around to it.

Last year my best friend died. It was so wrong, she was far too beautiful and kind; we were going to grow old, disgracefully, together. We’d met at Primary School over forty years ago and we each knew everything there was to know about each other. Sue was the only one who asked me, “How’s the writing going?” Whenever we met up and started chatting about the important things to us. And she was the only one who told me, “Your time will come,” when I’d miserably confess most of the pages in my notebook were blank and I couldn’t think of anything to write about.

As my grief and shocked numbness crumbled into the raw ache of loss, I decided to honour Sue’s belief in me. A month after her funeral I opened this account with the intention of writing a blog about the writing journey I wanted to finally carve for myself. Immediately, I was overwhelmed by the ‘business’ side of things. I searched Google and other blogs for answers but ended up more confused. It didn’t help that everyone else automatically seemed to know how to set up their details and account information. Disheartened, I abandoned the site.

Until now. It was my birthday on Sunday, but I lost my nerve, then. I’ve since concluded that I might never work out how to create a Menu or Title Page or how to download photos and images but I do want to write. I promised myself I would post this on the 14th – my lucky number – but it is now early on the 15th because it’s taken me longer to type than I anticipated.

That’s okay, though; the 15th of January would be Sue’s birthday.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton