Dear all
This week, during my Swansea trip to visit my family, I decided one morning to dig into some old writing. Much like this photo - not perfect but capturing a moment in time - I struggle to delete anything I write. I keep all old drafts just in case, usually dated so I can tell which one is newest.
My sister has an 18 month old baby and was asking me a couple of questions about what my kids were like at that age. I couldn’t remember much, so I thought I’d see what I’d written down. I couldn’t find much that was useful. I had been going to creative writing classes for beginners for a year when I became pregnant, so writing was really new to me then and my writing habit has grown alongside my kids.
When my kids were small, I took part in National Novel Writing Month. This was when I began to realise that I could write. The idea is that you write 1667 words per day for the month of November and then you end up with a 50k word novel. I’d write the words, but I had no clue really how to make them into a novel. I felt bad about my writing for years because I couldn’t do this, but I kept the drafts anyway. Looking at them now, I can see they are full of ideas and lots of freewriting. I can see that I was processing the differences between my life in London and where I’d come from in Swansea. I was also processing through fiction what it was like to become a mother.
I had three thoughts while I was reading my old work:
I’d written as an aside more than once: “all I want to do is write, cook, garden and spend time with my kids”. I used to feel as if this was somehow a failing because I wasn’t out earning money or carrying on my career from my 20s. Now I think: I am closer to this than I have ever been. I am so fortunate. I will keep going on this path.
I could finish this story for my younger self. Once, I finished off a novel for the family of a writer who passed away before she had completed it. I thought: why not do this for myself? This was such a liberating thought. Instead of beating myself up for my writing not being any good, I imagined what it would feel like to return to the ideas and finish them off now. This was partly inspired by a visit to the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea, where I learned he often returned to notebooks he began when he was in school for his ideas. I sometimes think I have to keep coming up with new ideas because the old ones didn’t work, but when I look back at my work, I can see the threads. My ideas are constant with different iterations.
And finally, my most interesting observation. There are three older, caring characters in one of my unfinished novels, like mentors to the main character. From the perspective of time, I realised that the three mentors represent the three areas of life I’m interested in now: gardening, herbalism & cooking, creativity. It was as if I was writing nurturing guides for where I wanted to end up. And I didn’t realise it at the time.
Here are a few fragments about the three mentors I wrote back then (about 15 years ago):
TALLY
“One summer, I found work in the Japanese Garden in Holland Park. I wanted to work outside and the council were hiring seasonal workers. I didn’t count on the effect it had on my life. A world so ordered and simple, it had that effect on my mind. In my memory the sky was always blue. The grass was clipped and there was a clear path you could follow. There was a waterfall and koi carp gliding through the water in the pool below. You could sit on the stone bridge and watch the fish. I worked with one other gardener, an older man, Tally, who had dedicated his life to that garden. It was his place of peace in the world.”
The character of Tally was inspired by a kind Jamaican man who was my next-door neighbour in Camberwell. I could see his walled vegetable garden from my first floor balcony. That balcony was where I began gardening. I had hostas with huge leaves that would unfurl in spring, which I’ve never been able to grow since.
MARCIA
Marcia was Tally’s wife and when the main character (Ruby) tells Tally she doesn’t want her baby in a hospital, he suggests that she meet his wife Marcia, who, conveniently happened to be a midwife!
“Our relationship seemed to take place in isolation from the rest of the world. She brought so many things with her. She smelled of cinnamon and oranges and came with a bag of vegetables from Brixton market or Tally’s garden. If there was a vegetable I didn’t know how to cook, she’d take up residence in my kitchen with knives and spices at the ready to give me a lesson. Her meals were always delicious and we’d discover a camaraderie and I’d talk to her about my day, and eventually about Adam and what I was doing with him. I was never sure.”
SOFIA DE SILVA
Possibly my favourite fictional character name I’ve ever come up with!
“The doors of The Serpentine Gallery open as I approach. I like the Serpentine as it only has room for one exhibition, like a poem, enough to take in with one visit. As soon as I begin to take in the vast coastal images and the blue-green soft focus sea glass sculptures, the emotion wells up at the back of my throat. It comes out in sobs and I feel a chair being put down behind me. My legs, like a wave easing onto the flat, sandy shore, wobble and give way beneath me and I sit down. I fish in my bag for a tissue; blow my nose and soak up the tears for my eyes. When I’m calm enough to look closer, I see tiny words etched into the pieces of sea glass that, when connected together, make a poetic whole. It is a comment on and observation of the place where I collected shells, made sandcastles, learned to cartwheel, surf and later camped out. It was our playground, a place I never thought I’d leave, until the summer my brother Jake died.
I knew who the artist was as soon as I saw it, but seeing her name in print doesn’t feel real. A name from another life, from a dream. Sofia de Silva, my mother’s best friend, British beach artist.”
Sofia de Silva is a bohemian, creative influence on the main character.
I’ve enjoyed reminding myself of these characters which existed so strongly in my imagination but didn’t quite get fully realised on the page. And importantly, I can see now how I was writing my own guides to life. As I return to a new season of my work and my life in Sussex, this encourages me to keep going with whatever needs to be written and to trust that the path I’m on was always there. This is so reassuring.
Writing invitation
Dip into your writing from the past. Which ideas do you have that are undeveloped but keep cropping up? What are the themes in these ideas? What do they tell you about your life?
Do some freewriting on the advice you’d give your younger writing self or what you can do now for your younger writing self.
Creative Writing Workshops with me (Mel Parks)
I have a new season of workshops starting next week!
The content of the workshops is similar in each one, but if you are a beginner and live within travelling distance of East Grinstead, I would recommend my monthly Tuesday evening workshop. If you’ve been writing for a while and would like a more committed practice with a very supportive, friendly group of writers, then do give the Thursday morning class a go.
If you’d prefer an online session, then try the weekly guided creative writing hour on Zoom (2-3pm UK time).
Tuesday afternoons on Zoom (2-3pm UK time)
£8 per month or £80 per year with a paid Awen Substack subscription.
New season starting on 16 April.
Break: 28 May & 4 June
Last session: 16 July.
12 sessions altogether. You can come to as many as you are able to.
If you are not able to subscribe (or don’t want to!), then please email me for alternative ways to join.
Monthly Tuesday evenings in East Grinstead (7-9pm)
Each workshop costs £30 but if you book all four at once in advance, they cost £100 (a £20 discount).
Book all four Tuesday evenings in East Grinstead.
Thursday mornings in East Grinstead (10-12noon)
Series of five weeks beginning on 13 June (13 June; 20 June; 27 June; 4 July; 11 July)
If you attend my face-to-face groups regularly, you can also attend the Zoom group for no extra charge.
I have an online space where I post exercises and other resources so you can catch up if you miss a session or you'd like to return to something after the workshop.
Until next time…
This newsletter was created by Mel Parks, a writer, researcher and workshop facilitator based in Sussex, UK. Mel runs writing workshops locally and on Zoom and researches creativity in midlife as well as her personal connection to nature. She has been widely published and is currently working on a series of moon and plant-inspired essays.
It is free to read and share, but if you value my work, please do stop by my virtual honesty box and leave a handful of loose change.
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Such beautiful writing Mel, I love the depth of description and feel as if I could see the hostas ,smell the cinnamon and could see the sea glass inscription.Thank you
I love Fridays knowing I will have some of your thoughts to reflect on from Awen.
Love Elizabeth xx