This year I have plunged into writing more than ever before – the April A to Z Challenge led to a world of poetry, I recently wrote a deep essay on changing our relationship with the motor car, I am re-working the first draft of a novel and of course, a great deal of my day job, two and a half days a week is spent writing. Also in the course of the year, I encountered through other writers, the Insecure Writers Support Group and then yesterday, the group post announced their twelfth anniversary!
Recently I have been reading Margaret Atwood “on”On Writers and Writing” and in an early chapter, she writes about the duality of writers – how there exists “the one who writes and the one who lives” and she explores the inevitable tensions that having such a split induces – the Jekyll and Hyde nature of the beast. I write because I am driven internally to do so, but externally, my partner is going through a difficult time which means that staying close to her, there is a lot of time which I fill with writing.
I have no illusions about publishing work – I once heard the statistic that 4000 novels are written for each one published. That may have changed in a digital age when self-publishing is ever easier – even if it is only on your blog. Still, whilst I am now polishing a second draft of a speculative novel, the act of passing through the stages of the journey towards publishing has a zen of its own. I am not saying that there is no anxiety about whether a piece of writing is “good enough”, or whether people will like my latest poem but for me, travelling hopefully is as important as arriving…
I left Ireland to return to the UK in 2005 but not before my late sister Carol, had rekindled my joy in writing by taking me to an in-person writing group in Sligo. A first novel was started (and is still in progress) and a second more straightforward one is that which I am revising, and so I thank Carol for that gift and I dedicate the following poem – the product of an online and ongoing writing group and I offer it towards the Insecure Writers Support Group and its anniversary since it is appropriately entitled “Worry Beads”. Back in July, it was also the 12th anniversary of dVerse Poets Pub so 2011 must have been an inspired year for poets – anyway, I posted a poem for their celebration here.
Worry beads…
The state of the nation
is held in abeyance
holding it’s breath till the next election
the polls show a twenty point
Labour lead – but I worry
they still might lose
and if they win I worry too
they may not be different enough
having posed in the centre
to avoid alienating anyone.
I worry that my grandchildren
All young adults flown the nest
may not be able to buy a
house of their own, their own nest.
The doctor and his bright partner
will earn enough but will the rapper
find his way high enough
to have financial success
or will he fall like a spent rocket
to a job supporting other’s dreams
I believe he too worries
although it doesn’t slow him down.
The oldest by some years
has already built several businesses
and not anchored by children
only cats and cake-making
he and his girlfriend will
go to America again and again
and one day they won’t come back.
I worry that despite all help
my spouse will not
find her way out
of the deep, dark past
where she is lost in the labyrinth
and no breadcrumb trail
to lead her back to the light.
As I keep her shell company
in front of the TV
I do not take enough exercise
already impeded by a lame leg
I know it cannot be wise
and I will shorten my natural span
which after all
is only two years short
of three-score years and ten.
I write to keep a space for me
And to reach out to new friends
across the digital ether
but pushing a pen is not the same
as pushing through the wall and
I do not want to be found
one day slumped across a keyboard
mid-virtual conversation.
Still, on a scale of one to ten
my worries rate quite low
I have made marks both
in the world, in certain hearts
and in minds too
the legacy of things
is not as vital as a lot of love.
And so I write for love
not glory, the oldest profession
is surely to tell a good story
and whilst I love to get good feedback
if I don’t get published,
will I really worry?
© Andrew Wilson, 2023