I am apparently now single, and have been since the 7/8/2014, although the court neglected to inform either me or my solicitor.
I am still working out how I feel about this…
Tag Archives: divorce
The bookshelf-sorting game…
Now that soon-to-be-ex hubby has moved out, taking around 1,000 books with him, I have some room on the shelves – and the freedom to sort them as I please 🙂
I am slowly working my way around the house, moving books to where they need to go, and deciding how to order them. Some decisions are no-brainers – the science fiction stays in the lounge, because it’s the largest volume by genre in the biggest single run of book shelves; and alphabetical is as good a sort method as any. 
The study is giving me the greatest pleasure – and it’s still very much an artwork-in-progress. The current arrangement is, left wall; work textbooks, psychology, diabetes, health, diet and current (ish) travel books:
Right wall; general fiction, biographies, short stories, poetry, archaeology/history books that are tentatively NOT in the writing research category, and natural history books. The big gap in the middle holds manuscripts of my own poetry, kids’ books and novel – plenty of space for more 🙂
The back wall is slowly filling up with history and writing books from all over the house. Still to go on these shelves are the have-read piles in my bedroom, and the reading-now piles next to my chair in the lounge and beside my bed.
Then I shall move all the cookery and gardening books into their proper place in the lounge and dining room; sort out the photos mountain that is half in the study and half in the kids’ shared bookcase upstairs (not going near their individual bookshelves, too scary!), and I shall be done.
Given that my Christmas list was almost entirely books, I may need more bookshelves 🙂
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I hope you enjoy my books as much as I loved writing them! Here’s my Amazon page.
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Caveat Scriptor
I am trying not to write, at least until my divorce comes through – probably in April. To my horror, I discover that my husband is entitled to a share of anything that comes into the marriage – from my wedding ring to the putative lottery win the day before the Decree Absolute – and I’d rather he didn’t have any claim on my writing, thank you.
I might as well say that I’m not going to breathe until April, though – things keep seeping out of my brain! I’ve been having fun with a poem that’s writing itself, usually in the early hours of the morning, in haiku; that one’s about the feelings that the divorce has engendered, so may well stay strictly private.
But there’s two short stories that have been giving me a literal headache, as they both insist that they must be put down on paper Right Now. One is a steampunk story, which I’ve not been researching magic, cheese, or explosives for, honest. Any reading around these topics has been entirely coincidental, as has been any outlining taking place. At least it’s had the decency not to wake me up to capture scenes in the small hours.
The other is a story to meet a challenge my sister gave me – a magazine we read runs a regular story competition, any topic you like, £100 prize. “Go on,” says my sister, full of faith in me, “you can do it!” So off my subconscious goes, completely ignoring the practicalities of life.
Yesterday, the two stories were getting mixed in my head. I was getting an idea about a crippled girl for the magazine story, who kept on popping up making cheese in the other; it was getting hopelessly confusing, so today, I gave up and gave the girl her head. Talk about pushy! The first draft took about an hour, and she insisted it had to be in the 1st person. An interesting experiment, I hadn’t done anything longer than a poem in 1st person before; the choice of tense is problematic, strangely! Anyway, first edit done before 2nd cup of coffee (she really was that urgently insistent). 2nd edit done by lunchtime; story passed to Younger Daughter for comment. Lots of family stuff later, I pick up the magazine to read the rules at about 9pm. Yikes! 700 word limit! *checks word count* Hmmm. 1500 words. *edits frantically, removing obvious redundancies* 1100 words. *edits again, taking out stuff that only looks like fat with a 700 word limit* 750 words. Eats pencil end. Slaps forehead; move to present tense (get rid of “was -ing” constructions, save one word per verb). Can ANYTHING else go? Finds another 3 excess words. Re-reads. Hey, this is a good, tight story! Checks word count. 694. Yay!
Story is now sitting in sister’s inbox, waiting for her comments. I’m actually tempted to send it off, if only to get it well away from the steampunk story, which is starting to protest against favouritism… I really had no idea this would happen, when I took up this little writing hobby!
CAVEAT SCRIPTOR…
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I hope you enjoy my books as much as I loved writing them! Here’s my Amazon page.
If you’d like to know more about my writing, you can sign up for my newsletter.
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I heard it on the radio…
One of my favourite books ever is Doris Lessing’s The Four-Gated City.
I’ve revisited it time and time again over the last 30 years or so, finding something new in it on each occasion; but an abiding image is Linda’s discussion of the radio in her head. When her mental illness is in the ascendency, the radio is a problem, with domineering voices. When she is mentally well. it’s an inner barometer; the songs it plays tells her how her subconscious feels about things going on in her world.
I have often tuned into my inner radio. It really is an astonishingly perceptive instrument; sometimes poking witty fun at the world, sometimes echoing its darkness.
At the moment, the song that has been blasting at full volume for weeks is a tune by the Canadian song mistress Heather Dale, with Joan of Arc reflecting on her lonely position.
“Oh, they won’t call me Mother, or Sister, or Wife; they will know me or not by the strength of my life… I’ll burn; they’ll know me as Joan…” (from memory – via my radio! Heather’s web site is down. It’s at http://heatherdale.com/ )
Well, I fully intend to carry on being a mother and a sister – but I am completely ready to stop being a wife. I guess the “strength of my life” bit is a challenge – which I will relish, AFTER I get some sleep!
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Sleep…
The best cure for insomnia is to get a lot of sleep.
I yearn for sleep… I do remember mornings when I woke refreshed. I even remember throwing the covers off with a zest for the new day.
Over the last 6 months, however- as the painful process of divorcing my husband drags on – sleep has been a rare event. I go to bed at 11 every night, and lie there tossing and turning; any small thing – a radiator creaking, or my daughter coughing – sparks another round of activity. The clock glows beside me – it feels worse if I don’t know the time. Eventually, exhaustion kicks in, at midnight, one, two o’clock, and I sleep. I open my eyes to dark; 3 or 4 am. I toss and turn again. If I’m lucky, sleep returns. I always wake before the alarm, these days – or when the week-day alarm is set to, at the weekend.
Even a daytime nap is beyond me. I carefully darken the room, loosen clothing, close my eyes… and I jerk awake. Now wired, I lie there for a while, in case the rest is beneficial; then give up.
My eyes burn all the time. There’s a headache that doesn’t ever go away. I occasionally stagger from sheer exhaustion; if I bend over and stand up, I need to wait until the world stops spinning before carrying on. I feel dirty the whole time. Earlier today, I found myself wondering whether it would be possible to curl up on the warm, fine tilth of a field and sleep forever…
I vaguely remember this phenomenon from when my daughters were babies – but then, it was a time of joy, and growth, with each day bringing pleasure alongside the zombieness.
Please god I can entice sleep back into my life when some part of this endless process concludes…
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I hope you enjoy my books as much as I loved writing them! Here’s my Amazon page.
If you’d like to know more about my writing, you can sign up for my newsletter.
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Eclectic pleasures 