Hermione Laake's Blog: Thoughts, page 15

Growth

Remember growth start from a tiny seed. Sometimes to get new growth you have to cut a great deal of dead wood away. Sometimes you need to cut right back to the base.

Take my plant, passiflora edulis, I think. A couple of years ago I planted this plant in a semi-shady spot in the garden. It likes a semi-shady spot. It didn’t grow so I moved it to another semi-shady spot. This time it got eaten right back to one leaf. I’ve been gardening for years so I wasn’t too fazed. I waited until the spring and moved it again.

Even though it had been eaten right back from a 3 foot plant to the stem it grew back within two years to a size it has never been. All it needed was the right conditions.

That’s why I know that this moment of loss is only a moment and out of it can come new growth, if we will only do it right this time.When you take the wrong path there are countless opportunities to move in the right direction, all you have to do is start all over again.This is true of relationships and any challenges. Don’t give up.

Don’t give in to despair. Start again. Keep going. Build anew.

Why not start now, with this special offer for my readers, and help me in the process? Start building something.

http://wordpress.com/refer-a-friend/j2k0VyJi2lXp44qwEBgE

All my love,

Hermione

Slow – to anger – Discover Prompts

In this fast-paced world it seems to me that slowness should be celebrated. This staying in is giving our natural world a much needed break from our relentless pursuit of happiness. Being still is something to be celebrated.

There is nothing fast about writing. Good writing requires reflection, deliberation, procrastination too.

I am slow. I have come to know this about myself. When I was younger I was told that I was ‘slow on the uptake’, ‘niaive’, or ‘gullible’; a couple of years ago, I was feeling very frustrated with myself and then I heard a celebrated writer discussing his weaknesses and it occurred to me that perhaps, like him, my weakness was a strength.

I do not like to rush to decisions and never have; when I write, I like to take a long time over it and to craft my stories, sometimes over a period of years. Recently I learned that if I simply sit in the same chair for three weeks on end, I can continue to craft a short story and come up with something I feel is good enough to send off to a publisher. Now, it isn’t that I didn’t know this. I have always known this, but never really given myself the time to sit for such a long time. In this fast-paced world we are all tempted to believe that everything should be accomplished at speed. If we cannot churn it out on time or fast enough then there must be something wrong with us. Everyone walks at a fast pace in London. I used to applaud this speed and what I thought was efficiency, until I got the opportunity to sit back and really reflect without the usual daily pressures which I succumb to, which for the past ten years have been finding a meaningful job which I can fit in around my writing career and responsibilities to my children.

Take this blog.

Take this blog; usually I write it in a hurry on my cheap phone, which obscures the add-ons, like ‘picture editing’ and ‘tags’, to such a degree that I have to select ‘publish’ and go back and re-edit. This is not efficient. Now, I do not want to give the impression that I am not efficient, because that would not be true. What I am suggesting is that for several years now I have found myself in environments that promote inefficiency by their very focus on capital. I did spend some time trying to work against this wrong-footedness, to no avail, and kept ‘banging-my-head-against-a-brick-wall’ as we say over here, attempting to re-engage with this same mindset in a different setting. The problem was not with me, I realised, but with the culture. I was not the right fit for it.

My modus operandi is to take time to consider. Now this works very well in the setting of contributing editor. I can receive a submission to my inbox and take the time to read it. I can deliberate, if I need to. Of course, often this is not necessary, since there are writers who send work off when they know it is not ready because they need a proverbial pat on the back for their achievement thus far, and they know this in their hearts. (This is a mistake because most publishers will not have the time to devote to setting them on the right track and will not want to mislead them by suggesting what is good or right about the work, since it is so far away from publication that the editor knows that this false hope would not be an honest approach.) There really is no substitute for writing and writing and writing towards perfection, except reading and reading and reading towards perfection.

I decided to write this because I thought it might help anyone else struggling with slowness to appreciate what it is that they have. Slowness is a gift. There is an innate patience in slowness, the ability to wait for success, the ability to hone and craft and stand at a distance and admire and then to return and refine. Nothing is ever finished. A book may be re-written, or written back to, referenced or ridiculed, made into a film, a ballet, or a play. As Massocki Ma Massocki said in his work The Pride of an African Migrant, published this year ‘Nothing can remain static’.

When running businesses, I used to tell my area managers that it took at least a year to build up a business; they always wanted me to achieve this in 6 months. I never understood why. It is easy to win a race, but consistency is a slow and deliberate habit, as those of you who have persisted with your blogs on WordPress will know. Nothing happens overnight. This is an illusion. A person may walk into your shop and have a discussion with you that will change the way that you do something, a comment or experience may change the direction of your story. Imagining that the person that you employed for whatever quality you saw in them when you employed them, has somehow managed, in a short space of time, to disprove your initial conviction is a mistake. When you achieve a job in the Private Sector your performance is everything. Yet when you achieve a job in the Public Sector you may keep it and you receive regular reviews of your character in the hope that you will change. Artistic and creative endeavors celebrate diversity and experience and do not hold a microscope up to individual mores.

I have never been competitive, preferring to do my best at whatever I set my mind to. What those around me chose to do is of no interest to me in my journey because we are not on the same journey. This means that I can happily celebrate the success of an individual and enjoy the creativity and enterprise of a successful person without feeling envy or jealousy.

In the past when I have employed people to work with me, I have celebrated their talents. I have helped them to use those talents and I have focused on those talents and not on what they were doing wrong. I like to think that I have guided them, rather than criticised them. That was always my aim. This world is full of talented and complex people who deserve a chance not to be stereotyped and written off, because they are old, or young, or slow. Sometimes it is in the greatest weakness that a strength abides, unseen except for looking.

The Hare and the Tortoise mentality:

Endlessly aiming for a prize seems to me to be wrongfootedness, as thought there were a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Imagine arriving at the end of the rainbow and finding that it was the journey that was the prize. Surely it would be better and more relaxing to understand that at the beginning, to slow down.

What I am most grateful for on my journey is my five children. Each and every one of them is a blessing that I cannot put into words. I am grateful for everyday that I spent with each of them, for the creative times when we made Lego towers, Brio towns, wind chimes, tree houses, plywood theaters, clay models, drew pictures on rolls of wallpaper, wrote stories together and practiced our own limericks, cooked, nurtured plants, carried shopping, danced, sang, played instruments, went to concerts, plays and art galleries, jogged, swam and rode our bikes.

With this in mind, I want to leave you with one thought. Enjoy the journey, and do not be so focused on the end.

References: Massocki Ma Massocki The Pride of an African Migrant, Pierced Rock Press, 2019

Discover Prompts – Day 15 Heaven Sent

Heaven sent scent

Sent to remind me

All is not lost

A rose can transport me

To the rose gardens at Hampton Court

Or to a park

When all of this was something that happened to other people in another time, and changed our language here in Britain for ever,

[image error]

A field of yellow, because we are lucky enough to be able to go for a walk, a sunny field, a happiness field, good enough to adorn the walls of a tiny flat in East London, where perhaps the smell of a neighbour’s coffee drowned in sickly sugar will have the same effect; or perhaps not.

Sugar always reminds me of my father, like a child wanting to eat every sweet on the plate, or the way once you consumed 8 jellies in a row, sweet bouncing child of mine, and us without a care in the world then. Happy as mothers left with children are, not knowing there were others for whom this was a banquet.

Flash Fiction

https://ojalart.com/category/literary-arts/fiction/flash-fiction-to-1000-words/

Flash Fiction

Flash Discourse: Fiction|Hermione Wilds|”The Narrative”

Pairs – discover Prompts – day 9

Pears. Isn’t that a trademark? A particular kind of soap? Or a delectable fruit which rhymes with stairs, apples and pears, cockney rhyming slang for stairs.

I’m growing a pear tree in a pot in the garden. I’ll make a short film and put it here for you.

Last year we grew one solitary pear on that tree, organically, of course. Still it tasted all the better for its rarity.

My mother used to sing me that song. Wierd. Nonsensical. It goes like this:

I had a little nut tree

Nothing would it bear

But a silver apple

And a golden pear

The king of Spain’s daughter

Came to visit me

And all for the sake of

My little nut tree

I skipped over water

I danced over sea

And all the birds in the air couldn’t catch me

I suppose it is a song about possession, and about the importance of trees.

People who walk in pairs must have realised that love is not possession. And what a long and difficult lesson that can be.

Bite – Discover Prompts – Book Bites

[image error]Books are the best family heirlooms; a book from our book collection

I read to my children when they were young everyday, from newborn to teenagers. We read many books and around age 6 or 7 they began to read the books to me. One book I remember was called The Finger Eater. I read this to the children several times, thinking nothing of it, except it was a good tale. This particular story probably springs to mind because of the association with today’s prompt word, ‘bite.’

Years later my eldest daughter wrote a story of her own. It was called Esan Cigam. You may notice that this reads Magic Nose when the letters are reversed. It was a story about an interesting character that adds parts of his nose to his soup dish; a dish renowned. I entered it into the Bridport for children.

I took my daughter along to the prize giving myself by invitation. She was a runner for the prize, though someone else did better. The story was less creative, but, I suspect, properly written. I had left in my daughter’s errors for authenticity, having read the story and thought it deserved a chance at a competition. This wasn’t the first competition I had helped her enter by locating the competition and driving her to the prize giving.

Afterwards, one of the judges came over and told us that had it been down to her my daughter would have won the prize.

This daughter is now a copywriter. This too was a journey, and the journey was not an easy one.

[image error]First page, Margaret Ogilvy, by J. M. Barrie – found in an old bookstore

I sometimes wonder how different the trajectory of this daughter’s life might have been had she won. Still there are usually several paths and we learn from all paths.

This got me thinking; as an editor for a journal I often read excellent stories with several flaws, and I know that these are the most enjoyable stories I’ve ever read. Yet the ones that are accepted are the ones that are right for the journal, and the ones that are almost perfectly executed. Of course, There is nothing wrong with this. The writing Journey is a long and arduous one. And who will listen and hear criticism and not rewrite to such a degree that all the power of the original is lost?

To get coaching right, you need a certain level of gentleness. Crafting a story is very different from drafting it. I’ve often felt that requires a different side of the brain. I know myself that when I craft a story I am writing more critically.

Still, the stories that stay with me long after they were rejected, are the stories with the most bite, and they were never the most perfectly executed.

Bibliography:

Laake, Camilla, Esan Cigam and the Mysterious Dish, 2003.

Smith, Dick King, The Finger Eater, Walker Books, 1992

orchestrate – Discover Prompts – Day 8

I was listening to BBC Sounds yesterday, and I caught the end of a podcast on Beethoven. Now Beethoven has long been a favourite composer of mine. Yesterday’s offering enhanced my understanding of why this was and of my own sensitivity. Beethoven was not well loved when I was young; he was criticized and derided, probably because he was popular and popularity is something artists never court. Still my dad used to play Beethoven, and aged 2 I took to the music, even though it wasn’t played the way the Jonathan Bliss played it.

I never knew why Beethoven was so maligned; I’m beginning to think that this was because he was not well understood. You need to be able to feel the music, something that, as an empath, I completely felt when Bliss elucidated.

The pianist explained about how Beethoven wanted a particular piece to be played. I won’t go into the detail here because you should listen to the recording especially if you are emapthic and sensitive. I think you will understand what the pianist means and indeed what Beethoven was attempting with the composition.

Here is the link: Beethoven Unleashed: Jonathan Bliss:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000h09g

Outside, there is a growing number of women sitting in chairs chatting. Because I am an introvert of a non-binary disposition, I’m not sure I should join them. So here I am writing this, courtesy of Discover Prompts and the BBC.

Enjoy,

All my love,

Hermione

A town in Bristol city

[image error]

Photograher, Hermione Laake (young mum of 24 years, writer and ex-retail manger, 1990).

I thought I would write a Coronovirus diary, as I read one blog on behaviour from Toronto and found it interesting from a psychological perspective.

Here, in our small town we have over four coffee shops; all are shut down and have been for a couple of weeks. There is a sign on the Coffee 1 store which reads “we know you wanted us to keep going” but they decided it was best to close. I suppose they must have made this decision before the government advice came into force. I don’t know because way back on the 12 th March I was visiting my former home town, Shaftesbury and visiting relatives when I became quite upset. At the time the general consensus seemed to be that this was an old person’s disease, or that the elderly were more susceptible. There was a lack of clear knowledge. My son, a trainee doctor, rang me on that day and suggested I tell his grandmother to go into complete self-isolation. He is level headed so I knew this was serious. I rang her straight away, and she went into immediate lock down. I’m sharing this personal story/ history because I feel it’s important.

I never returned to the coffee shop, even though before that I’d been a daily visitor. Like Ernest Hemingway, I found it stimulating sitting in a coffee shop to write.

Here, once the advice was changed and clarified, everyone, bar the odd person, has been abiding by the rules of social distancing. All coffee shops closed a couple of weeks ago. There are few shops open, just essential shops. People only go out to cycle, or for essentials.

I agree with the suggestion that things will alter when this is all over. Something has to change. It has seemed to me, for a long time, that employers and agencies are perpetuating a full-time work mentality. This is a form of subtle control. I’m sure that many mums like me would prefer to work part-time, 30 hours a week, not wall to wall working, which prevents you from seeing your family. I was fortunate to raise almost all my children as a stay at home mother and writer, except the youngest. I went out to work full-time once she was eleven, and starting secondary school. I had to work in a cafe before that because of the lack of part time work.

Yesterday, I applied for a role which was advertised as flexible, and involved some night shifts, because I thought that this was better than nothing. The agency manger finally replied with the message, ‘this is a full-time role. We have a cleaning position which is part-time.’ This agency manger knows I am an English Graduate and experienced manager.

I’ve been looking for part time work since October last year. In July, I got a job as a Sunday deputy manager. I worked every Sunday from August until February. I left this role for reasons I won’t go into here, but it shouldn’t be the case that I have to work Sundays because there is a shortage of part-time roles for professional, experienced and educated people like myself.

I really do hope the culture changes. I was reading an article in The New York Times about the mood in Wuhan this week. Family is now more important than work. That sounded promising.

It is truly tragic that our young people feel compelled to work 24/7 to keep rooves over their heads; this has to change.

Curve? Discover Prompts

Hello dear readers,

How do I know I’m a writer? Take just now, outside my front door there is a growing group of women sitting in chairs. They can do this because it’s a cul-de-sac; no ‘through’ traffic. They are keeping 2 metres apart.

We’ve had very dry weather, and I’ve been watering the plants much more often than usual as I noticed that the tulips grow better with water. I’ve lots of tulips out the front under the birch.

One of the group invited me to join. Possibly she’s an introvert as she is the latest edition (a Freudian slip perhaps), I’m turning her into a book. For any non-native speakers, I meant ‘addition’. I have just written a short story for my MA in which the protagonist is subsumed by a book, so the slip is perhaps understandable, like when you read old English or German and forget how to write in standard English.

I like watching the growing group; still, while I may enjoy talking to her, as I suspect her conversational style will be one that I find more stimulating, I declined. My polite excuse, ‘I’m a writer’.

On reflection it’s more complicated than that. Yes, I am a writer and I do process things slowly and better in writing, and through reflection I gain deeper understanding of things. I’ve learnt this about myself through a gradual process of hard work, determination and rejection. However, what I really wanted to say is really only something I’d say to a close friend who knows me well and who has built up a modicum of trust with me. You, dear reader, are like a friend. How do I know this? Well, let’s just say that’s every writer knows this. It’s what he hopes for (he was in standard use when I was a child and meant male or female so I’m deferring to it now for ease).

Still, what I really wanted to say was this; I am an introvert, I prefer a deeper, more thought out conversation. I don’t really want to know what you think of Covid or what you’re having for dinner, or what annoys you. I’ll be weary from sitting, and yawning in a moment, if I sit down. I’d rather go and write a blog, respond to a blog, or finish a short story I’m working on.

I also wanted to say, ‘do you see any men here?’ (I should add that since the age of ten I’ve not believed in binaries, which makes me sure there are some feminine men that would love to join in.)

Perhaps the men will join in a month or two, and maybe then I’ll succumb. You see, I’ve always felt like so much more of a man than a woman. Of course, when I was growing up this wasn’t acceptable.

My father knew it, and graciously christened me tomboy one. Perhaps he knew he was destined for 7 children, although non of the others achieved this accolade.