Painting by Letters

I love me a good analogy and as I haven’t mentioned any recently, I thought it was about time I took  one out, shook it off and gave it a thorough airing. 

During half term, whilst my clever husband was laying a floor in the living room, I was a few feet away  (we’ve downsized) giving the bathroom a couple of coats of what I consider to be a ‘warm steel’  - a kind of silver-denim if you like but I shall soon run out of describing words for the colour I got the nice people in Homebase to mix up for me - and it was during the first coat of this paint-job that I began my analogical musings.

I seem to follow the same weird (head) process whilst painting as I do when writing. Viz:

I start at the corners because I consider these the trickiest bits.  (Have a beginning. Know your end).  Then the corners are joined up to build a ‘framework’ for the haphazard, roller-it-like-a-madwoman and don’t worry too much about the splashes and drips because that’s what kitchen roll and spray stuff is for.  i.e. if I get it done without too much thought, then nobody will have seen me making and mending all the mistakes I made along the way and think 'how clever that's she's done this without any apparent pulling out of hair'.

And if paint gets on anything it shouldn’t (ceilings/skirtings/ light fittings/cat) then  there’s always white spirit, scourers and scrapers.  See -  the editing process is never an attractive proposition.  

But even as I’m painting the corners and the straight bits all nicely and neatly, I am WAY ahead of myself in the whole ‘picture’ process in my head and I’m already beginning to fret like a fool that I’ve chosen the wrong colour.  It’s going to make the room too small/too dark/too heavy/too frivolous/whatever.  I cannot relax.  And I have to convince myself to forge ahead.

Because what’s the alternative – go and buy a completely different colour; come back and perform the same silly dance all over again? 

I stand back at times and survey the scene – I squint in places and wonder if anyone would notice if I just left it and ran away for a week and started on a different room; maybe if I did it really badly then  I wouldn’t be relied on to do it again? And there’s always the tin of trusty Magnolia (delete/undo).

Lack of self-belief during the painting of a bathroom is utter lunacy; I know this now I can see it written down.  But it’s this exact-same self-belief that defies me when I’m writing too.

 

I’ve spent an eternity working out if the colour is right (that’ll be the story).  Will it ‘go’.  Will it be ‘got’?  Will it enhance, enrich, delight, transform? Will it make a difference, will it enlighten and will it be so memorable that everyone will want it?

It’s a bleedin’ rigmarole, is what it is.

This... THIS, people is why there are a million different half-full/empty tins of different coloured paint buckets hidden away in my metaphorical shed.  And unless I stop looking at other people’s pretty walls and trust that I’m allowed to choose my own shade for my own space, then I’m never going to get anywhere.

After I'd finished I did the usual 'stand back and survey' thing; turning the light on and off - watching where the shadows fell and how the light bounced off different walls and parts of me were proud at what I'd achieved.
I also revisited - popping back occasionally during the evening (well, we've only got the one loo so, y'know...) and approached the newly coloured room as if I was a stranger visiting and wondered how they'd see it.

The trouble is, I am an anxious painter.  it would therefore follow that I'm an anxious writer.
But I refuse to go down the 'Twenty Shades of Magnolia' path.

Fifty Shades of .....fad reading

Welcome to Part Two of my summer reading blog. Following last month's appeal for suggestions for my second holiday read, I would like to extend my thanks to all those who left comments and I'm pleased to report that I've selected The Poisonwood Bible in addition to The Submission. The two books are already tucked into the inside pocket of my red suitcase in preparation for the Family Getaway.

From experience (well, a fleeting straw poll), I reckon about 30 to 40 per cent of people read on holidays. I don't mean flicking through OK or Now magazines on the airplane, I'm referring solely to sitting down and getting through a book. Several years ago when Dan Brown was the Next Big Thing, I remember being on holiday and gazing at a row of people, men and women, lined along one side of the pool, reading The Da Vinci Code. Not one Da Vinci Code - there were multiple copies. There were even several copies, abandoned on sunloungers, sprinkled with sand. I'm curious as to whether the reading group compared views, swapped ideas or discussed the book at length in a beach style book club.

"Hello, I see you're reading The Da Vinci Code. So am I!' says Mavis, thrusting the book in a young male sunbather's face.

She hovers over him, blocking the sun's rays, threatening to spill out of her swimsuit.

'Hi there. Yes, I'm Kevin and I'm on page eighty.'

He removes his Ray Bans and smiles at Mavis.

'What do you think of it so far?' he asks.

'Well to be honest, darling, I'm only on the second page, but it looks like a lot of fun. I normally read a good Mills and Boon on holiday, but this year, I couldn't resist Dan Brown. After all everyone's reading this book."

This year with all the hype over the Fifty Shades series, I'm wondering if I'll be faced with a line of sunburnt sardines stagnating beside the pool or lined along the beach reading the novels. Now I haven't read the books, I have no desire to, and I don't want to know how the stories ends, but all I can see in front of me right now are hundreds and hundreds of book covers, obscuring faces and shielding large bosoms from the sun.

And EL James is laughing all the way to the bank.

Some Things Are Not What They Seem

I was thinking about book covers the other day. And how, quite often, they are misleading. For example, some of the more gutsy, well written 'commercial women's fiction' is often wrapped in more 'chick lit like' covers...

Anyway, I thought we'd have a bit of fun with the idea. Here's a photo I took on holiday and your mission for today, should you choose to accept it, is to provide an interesting caption for the photo.

You may choose the tropical gardening route, or a more sassy fifty shades of something idea. Go on, make us laugh.

 There's a fifteen pound book token for the winner!

What We're Reading/Writing/Watching

Tracey - I am currently watching Game Of Thrones (hooked!) and reading what already looks like my book of the year, Bring Up the Bodies.

Fionnuala - I'm doing a 'Ross and Rachel' i.e. taking a short break - from writing... I'm about to read 'So Much For That' by Lionel Shriver and I'm also hooked on Game of Thrones on the telly.

Debs - Taking a breath from having just finished the second book of "Fifty Shades" series (too much in this heat) and reading "The Girl on the Landing" by Paul Torday of "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen" fame. Watching "Grandma's House""The Voice" and anything with Graham Norton in it - which included the Eurovision Song Contest but we won't dwell on that! Writing wise I'm filling out conveyancing paperwork for imminent house move. Oh, its all go here :)

Caroline R - I'm planning the structure of my new non-fiction book, thinking about what I can include from my existing work and how much new material I'll need. This is a bit of a departure for me as I'm normally a pantser, but I'll have to make myself get organised for this one! I'm about to start reading Before I Go To Sleep by S. J. Watson, and I'm watching The Voice.

Caroline G - I am just about to start writing a new project, having abandoned the last one I was writing. This book is contracted by my publisher and am a bit nervous about getting it right. The one I finished over the winter and early spring didn't work at all! Has had to be binned. (Ouch) As for reading, I've just started Julia Crouch's second book, called Every Vow You Break. Loved her debut novel, Cuckoo. Watching? Bored, bored, bored with TV. Need a good box set.

Gillian - I've set sail on my next book, provisionally called Arktanic - yes that's right - a fusion of Noah's Ark and the Titanic. I'm reading A Parachute In The Lime Tree by Annemarie Neary and watching Indian Ocean with Simon Reeve, as he's a friend of a friend!

Derek is: 1. Writing job applications. 2. Rewriting an old novel, plus an edit, to have a go at self-pubbing through Lightning Source (having received author contribution requests of £1300 and £5000, in the last couple of months, from conventional publishers!). 3. Collating stories. 4. Writing plans. (Yes, that's writing writing plans!) 5. Reading The Little Book of the Great Enchantment by Steve Blamires.