Co-creation: what do I want in my (writing) life?

Freedom - Peace - Fun

This weeks Soul Circle writing prompt is a little different as we help Beth evolve Soul Circle into something even more fabulous than we already have. To help us, help her, help us (still with me?), she asks us to ponder a couple of really important questions. Afterwards, there is specific stuff about Soul Circle that I won’t bother you with, but I was surprised by my answers to Beths big three questions, and it makes me kinda happy.

The first question Beth asks, is how we might sum up what we want in three simple words. After the past year of upheaval, pain and decreasing lack of mobility, I didn’t have to think too long that what I want is Freedom, Peace and Fun.

I want the freedom to be physically more mobile, which will come when the long awaited hip op finally happens. But I also want the freedom that we had established before my 87 year old dad moved in. To be able to just do what I/we want, without having to consider if I want somebody else to tag along. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t mind. Sometimes, I don’t. Will Dad assume he is tagging along? Probably. So fixing that to the benefit of all of us will be key, and free up important space in my head to write.

I want the peace of mind to know that we are all in control of ourselves, and that I no longer need to be minder, planner, company to somebody else unless I choose to be. I can be in control of just me.

And I want to have fun, and to be fun, which feels like it has been totally lost in the last few years. I will get there.

Then, Beth asks “What is my dream for a day in my writing life”

I think perhaps I should preface this answer with a little information. Work on my brand new writers shed is imminent! I am having a shed constructed in our garden, that will be mine. Nobody else’s. It will be fully insulated, with a log burner, a double glazed window and French doors, with a canopy and tiny terrace so that I can have the doors open even in the rain (this is Scotland after all). It will have a tin roof so that I can hear the rain and the hailstones. It will have a chair for me, a chair for one of my dogs and a bed for the other. No chairs for any other humans. It will have a wall of pin board for my planning. A kettle on the log burner, plenty of candles. It will not have power on purpose. So this is the key part of my dream writing day.

My ideal day for writing will begin just around dawn. Quietly, I will slip downstairs, and sit and write for a couple of hours, while the rest of the house sleeps. This will be ‘other’ writing. Writing with Beth. For Substack. For my blog.

The house will wake. I will take breakfast, perhaps sit and plan the day ahead with everybody, feel settled that I have the day to do with as I will. I might do a few jobs, washing, some gardening, straighten things up, perhaps even take until lunchtime pottering.

After lunch I will take myself to my writers shed. I might take one of the dogs with me. Or I might light the log burner – I can’t do that if I want the company of my dogs – and I will write. This writing space is for my books. Proper writing hahaha. Or more importantly, writing that I prefer to have space for. Space in my head, space on my desk, and space on the walls to plot.

I will spend the afternoon without looking at the clock. I can make tea on the burner. I will have candles to light my winter afternoons but also to keep me in that writing mood. And I will just write. Or think. Or plan. Until my mind is spent, or I need sustenance.

On a writing day, somebody else will have cooked or started the dinner, so the house will be full of wonderful smells. And I can reward myself with a glass of wine as I relax in the bath before dinner, and an evening with my husband and my dad.

And if we really are talking an ideal world, there will be a non-important but interesting football match on the tv, so that they can watch without getting too worked up, while I can sit with them, but write some more, totally unconcerned about the forthcoming result.

That would be a glorious writing day.

How close, or far away am I to what that writing day would look like.

The most important thing would be completion of my writing shed. Once constructed, but before it is ready, I might spend my mornings, or perhaps a day or three, decorating it. Building furniture. Preparing it. I will be unable to think at all while there is stuff to do, but the excitement of it being ready will be wonderful.

I think actually, that might be it. I am much closer than I thought. Exciting. Sometimes scary. But mostly EXCITING!!!

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I am so glad to have been a part of Soul Circle since the beginning. It has given me so many things to think about, so many opportunities/excuses to write, and so many people to connect with. To be a part of the planning for what Soul Circle will look like in the next year and more is just fabulous, and I am looking forward to seeing where we can take it. I’m not at all on commission, but if you would like to be a part of Beth’s subscriber community, you can do that here. Who knows where it will take you? Do it. You know you want to…