THE JOKELESS FOOL by Penny Dolan

Hello! On a very unusual April the First.

With the UK is in self isolation mode, as are many countries, this day doesn't feel one for jokes - even if the annoying little fonts within this post are playing tricks on me.

Although the lad in the card seems mightily hopeful, I'll let him stay here awhile, as a wish for better and happier times.
 
   
Instead, while recognising I am one of the lucky ones without responsibilities, I'm musing on the current situation.where all my usual patterns of working seem disturbed.  



 
 

1. The getting of ideas.
I have limited the daily wash of news and information, but that same mental blocking makes it harder to dream up any new ideas at all. This seems to be a common problem. 

On Monday, here on ABBA, Tamsin Cooke described how children's experience of living in social isolation is making so many potential storylines seem unbelievable fiction. She explains the conflict far more closely and clearly than I could so do look for her post.

For myself, I'm just glad to have a WIP set in Victorian times to escape into, even though that time may be totally irrelevant to publishing's eventual mood and future shape. Onwards, however, wherever.


2. Keep watching your hands. 



Hunkered down at home, I'm waiting for fresh ideas, my scribble-pad at my elbow while I cook or clean.  Soon - like many - I'll be sorting through dusty paper piles, now-irrelevant print-outs and sets of workshop materials kept "just in case" for far too long. 

As I potter through each task, I'll be watching out for the smaller ideas rising up into the misty surface of my mind. Keep that notepad at the ready. That thought? That idea? That memory? it might make sense,


3. Going out, staying in.
 Two weeks in, and it's time to start looking for other ways to "fill the well" which - for me -  often began while wandering around historic sites, museums and galleries or going to the theatre. 


Time to search out some of the big museum tours and shows online, I think. 

 

Time to get out all the art books and look at the pages slowly, to write to the image. 


Time to go through some of the books on writing and try out some of the suggestions. Time to read books about artist's lives and how their work developed, perhaps?.


  


Time to search out some of the new websites offering art classes, creative ideas or on-line writing suggestions  Yes, there's alway's time . . .
 
Nb. You'll fine a new one "Let's Write!" Sue Purkiss's well-titled blog,  in the left sidebar of this very ABBA page. 

4. Wing'd chariots and all that. 


Time too, now the clocks have sprung forward, to focus my attention again. I'm returning to my trusty timer and a loose adaptation of the "Pomodoro" technique. First, setting the timer for ten minutes, you do nothing but write for that stretch. Then try for another ten, or even twenty or thirty. Gradually, one's habit of attention is being re-learned. 

Hint. You can set time limits on many more tasks than just writing. The sound brings you back to the present. Useful if, with all that's going on around you, you are more than usually distracted. 


 
5. Reading to yourself, for yourself.

 
There's so much more time - including the wakeful nights -  but I no longer want to read books that don't work for me, particularly fiction. 

In normal times, this would be a problem. I belong to two book groups where I love the people more than the books, and would hate to drop out of either one.

Increasingly, some of the titles are not what I want to read. Maybe I know too much about dramatic tension and rising plot points and unreliable narrators now? Faced with a too-evident screen-seen structure, I easily lose my belief in the particular fictional world before me on the page. 

What I want are books that I am comfortable with, well-written and re-assuring, often quirky. I want more of the calm rationality of non-fiction too, not the next biggest dystopia or emotional roller-coaster. I already seem to be living through that now, thank you. 

 6. Reading for themselves, too.

This is a slight blog-side step, where I start to wave banners in the hope that the rush of online-schooling and home-working will still leave plenty of room for reading for pleasure. I want young readers to be able to choose to read "below their reading age" at times, without too much analysis and outcome. I want them to be able to return to their own comfort reads and much-loved younger favourites, just as many grown-ups are doing in this odd time. 

At a time when I am not able to meet or hug my children, grandchildren and many others in my family for who knows how long, I would like them to stillbe able to have the "literary hugs" offered by so many beloved books.

Penny Dolan.
@pennydolan1