Rhythms of life...

... for Knots in the String

I’m supposed to have an historical novel almost completed so that it moves into editorial by now. But said novel (my 14th), Oak Gall and Gold, is only half finished and I’m losing discipline and faith.

This year’s just not playing ball. I have no time and when I do, I want to do other things.

Like this last weekend, when I should have been writing but ventured into the wilderness of Tahune to observe the way nature is fighting back after catastrophic bushfires in 2019. I also want to talk with my grandson, to observe life through his uncynical eyes, almost four year old eyes.

I want to listen to life’s music – there’s so much to hear and not enough time. I want to be in my garden. Henry Beston said: ‘A garden is the mirror of the mind. It is a place of life, a mystery of green moving to the pulse of the year and pressing on and pausing the whole to its own inherent rhythms.’

That’s it! The rhythms! I want to sync myself to the natural rhythms. My own and nature’s and with that in mind, I made a decision last week.

For the close foreseeable I’m going to finish a fantasy novel I began about six years ago. I’ve had a fantasy series, The Chronicles of Eirie, in online bookshops for many years and I loved writing them – like writing the longest poem or relating a ballad. They wrote themselves really; I just let my fingers dance across the keyboard in eldritch fashion.

There’s something freeing about writing in the fantasy genre (contemporary fiction too) and TBH, I felt a weight lifting from my shoulders when I made the decision to return to fantasy for a little while. After that’s finished, I have a contemporary story I want to add to the one already ‘out there’. So quite a sabbatical from hist.fict.

Have I done the right thing? Who knows? But we have to give things a go, don’t we? We have to listen to the inner voice? Otherwise life is really just a rut that one can’t get out of.

Bookshelves:

Mainly my fantasy notes and the 40,000 words already written of the Cabinet of Curiosities (working title and perhaps Book One of a new series.)

Haven’t listened to any audio books – only my Coastal Grandmothers’ playlists. I’m waiting for my next Audible credit at the end of the month.

On Kindle, I finished The Bombay Prince (The Perveen Mistry series) by Sujata Massey. It was a good read, set in the Raj just prior to Independence. I have a fascination with Indian culture so this appealed to me.

And because I wanted to be taken right away from myself as I chewed over whether I should move from writing hist.fict to fantasy, I read a couple of chapters of Henry Beston’s The Outermost House. It’s word-perfect and soothes troubled spirits.

‘The three great elemental sounds in nature are the sound of rain, the sound of wind in a primeval wood, and the sound of outer ocean on a beach…’

This week, I’ve had all three.

Watching:

Timmy West and Pru Scales on Great Canal Journeys finished their journeying, and I confess I had a tear. Pru’s condition (dementia) had obviously worsened and listening to Tim and their adult children talking with and about the wife and mother that was vanishing before their eyes was so moving. Many might know one of their sons, Sam West, who has starred in a plethora of TV dramas - not least as the Duke of Edinburgh in The Crown.

This has to be one of the most beautiful lifestyle series I have ever watched. Food for the soul with scenery and literature . And nurturing hope too, that if dementia taints my husband or myself, we can be treated as gently and kindly by the illness and by our loved ones as Prunella Scales has been.

The Mallorca Files – pure clichéd murder mystery and amusing too, uplifted by its setting. Nothing wrong with lightness.

Murder in Provence. Ditto.

On SBS, a documentary entitled The Queen’s Guards which follows new recruits through the year of HRH Duke of Edinburgh’s passing. An intimate look at the rigours of ceremony and pageantry.

Boredom Busters:

Decision making … phew.

Picknicking. Eating out of a cane basket in the great outdoors. The best!

Cooking – making my version of biscotti (mine are not twice cooked). Finding a recipe for onion, apple and thyme tart. Doesn’t that sound beautiful? Imagine the flavours. I can taste it on my tongue as I write. Also an orange and chocolate cake from Nigella which I’m actually passing off as delicious brownies.

Stitching – concentration.

Grandson – blessing!

Sorting out my files from the fantasies written so long ago - it’s been fascinating delving into myth, legend and map-making! Also, as I set up the WIP, I realised I needed three Haikus. I’ve never written a Haiku so that was a rabbit hole. I’ve written the poems now and hope they sink into their place in the narrative. Time will tell…

Thank you for coming with me on my decision-making journey. You might like to read a recent extract of Cabinet of Curiosities. I hope it excites you as it is inspires me…

Ai shrieked as a shape broke out of the water, sinuous and glittering with gold and silver discs all over its body. It towered over their little craft, waves rocking them and water showering over their clothes. Ai screamed again, a sound drowned by a cascade of sunbursts as the final volley of fireworks broke across the sky from the further reaches of the imperial compound. Lien grabbed the sides of the punt, shouting to the maidservant to stay seated, to hold tight.

‘Chi Nü,’ she yelled to her spiritual guide. ‘Have a care for us! Help us!’

But perhaps too late. The dragon opened its mouth, rows of needle-fine teeth gleaming in the light of the fireworks, a stream of ice-flamed breath flowing toward them, the dragon’s tail whipping the lake surface into a maelstrom and the punt filling with more water.

‘Stay seated, Ai!’ Lien shouted, her teeth chattering as the dragon’s breath surrounded them, her life’s blood chilling. ‘Hold to the sides!’ But her screaming fixed in the air as her breath hardened, her eyes glazing over. Her last sight was ice forming over her maidservant like a shroud, spreading along the floor of the craft to the yellow silk folds of her wedding robe.

Suddenly there was nothing, not a sound, just a prism-filled casing of such coldness that she knew at once she was dying and that innocent Ai had preceded her. A tear rolled down her cheek, but she also knew as she slipped away, that it too had frozen in a perfect drop against her cheek. She was glad she was dying, because she would not wish to see what an ice-dragon spirit would do with she and Ai and she cursed the evil Others of her world and hated Kitsune for singling her out… (The Cabinet of Curiosities by Prue Batten)