It’s All Coming Back …
In a physical sense. I’m back. There’s two-inch thick dust on the surfaces (because I didn’t cover them!); there’s an almost-dead garden (I didn’t arrange for anyone to water and it’s been HOT!); there’s not enough time before Christmas to do everything that needs doing!
It’s Nan’s fault. Yes, I know. She’s a nonagenarian. I shouldn’t whinge. She needed some work done before the gutters failed completely. She can’t do it herself (I was wrong in that assumption). And she had words to say that a few days of visiting my place wouldn’t get done and dusted without a good argument/discussion.
Nan isn’t my grandmother. Not even related. Well, maybe very distantly. Her sister’s half-great-aunt was my grandmother, or something like that (so vague you have to believe her or try to figure it out on your own and go nuts!).
She’s part of a writing group. The elder of the group (‘cos she’s the oldest in terms of years breathing). She’s the mediator. We’ve let her become that because she’s the elder. We gave her that power.
Now, she wants to change the power structure a little more. She wants to have more input into how the story progresses, even though she’s not technically writing it at the moment. It’s her idea, so her name goes on the story. She’s the main editor, so she gets a say. And her say on the Valki story: it needs more of this, or less of that, or more other stuff. It needs changes, and they need to be such-and-such.
What did I do? I said, ‘Okay, write it up like that and send it to me.’
‘No, you do it. It’s nearly finished, so you fix it like I say, and it’ll be better.’
Hmmmmm.
‘No, Nan. If you want it to become a certain way, if you want it written the way you’d write it, you actually have to write it. You can do that. What you can’t do is tell me how to do it if you’re not going to be a full-input part of the process.’
Guess what happened?
We’ve spent a week (feels like a month) arguing things. She tells me why ‘this’ would work better, why certain elements need strengthening (in her opinion), why some things don’t work (for her).
Arguments have soared like the wings of the Wedge-tailed eagles that pass overhead as we fix the guttering and downpipes and ridgeline and capping. Cross words have slapped on thick as the stinky blue plumbers glue on the joins of the new stormwater system. One tile (yes, tiles – why have tiles out there? Why not a tin roof? See that shaking head? but she says it was easier to transport a few dozen tiles out here a bit at a time, than it was to try to tie tin onto the roof of a car – some story that would make!) – where was I? Oh, yes a tile smashed when she threw it at me while I dug holes for the long-drop replacement proper septic system with worms and no water thing that had to be dug into ground that’s more rock than anything else! It smashed. Not ten inches from my breakable body. While I was doing heavy work! For her!
I love Nan. I do. I particularly love her rants and use of powerful words and emotions (I’ve even used some of her characteristics in fictional characters, but don’t tell her that). But now they’re aimed at me.
The Valki story has had a deep change of direction more than once. This would be the fourth time. That’s not how I like to work. I get it out, work it, play it, push things around and get a draft complete. Then I let it sit – but I don’t sit. I go into another story to get it to the stage of having a complete draft. Not necessarily a good draft, but at the very least a complete draft, before I go back to the first story. Then I edit, etc. (there’s a lot of stuff between the end of the draft and the publication of the story, including structural and arc changes, and other stuff), and publish it. End of story. Move on.
I write the next one. It’s a cycle. It’s how I work.
And because this group of writing people I’m with is flexible and I like to ‘assist’ as much as possible to get them to the stage where they’re happy to go fly under the power of their own wings, I do stuff for them. Ghost-write. Push.
Nan pushed it too far. Things got very cranky.
I huffed and I puffed and … in the dark of a star-lit desert night where the thousands, millions of pin-pricks of light penetrate the stubborn tracts of self, I saw it.
Most of what she wanted would be the write (deliberate) thing for the story. Most. Not all. And I’ll take note of her ‘suggestions’ and fix some things. But it comes to this – if she doesn’t do the writing of the story, all she gets is an opinion, and if her opinion is in direct contrast to mine, she can take a few actions. One, take her name off the story; two, ask me to ‘let the story go’; three, take over the writing of the story; or four, take it all with a pinch of salt.
We finally came to an agreement.
What do you think is going to happen?
BTW – won’t be too many posts between now and the new year; Christmas prep work, visitor prep work, other stuff that always seems to crop up at this time of year. So, see you in the New Year (Chinese New Year will be the Brown Dog (does that mean an Earth Dog?); I’ll have to check what that will bring for the world, because dogs are loyal, guarded, honest – will they have an influence on the world as it is? We shall see.).
Good reading!
