I've had a weekend at the sailing club, so my go-fast-on-water needs have been satisfied (shh, Spaceship Benny, go back to sleep). So this is to satisfy the real, deep down, burning need to write and write and write and write forever :)
Putting the first draft through the mangle to get it ready for the wringer and waiting for the ginger beer to get cold in the fridge (or forgotten about -- that's entirely possible too).
Who ended up in the drink three times yesterday and had to have someone walk them through exactly how to land their dinghy? This person right here.
I am learning to sail. I was under the distinct impression that I could stand up on the boat as it rolled and I'd miraculously cause it to roll back to me.
2. The land isn't yours - an Exclusive Right of Burial is a grant that allows you to do three (3) very specific things, and imitating Monty Don is not one of them!
3. You will one day die - I know, I know, in a cemetery, right? That place full of dead things and you think you'll leave a legacy that'll last forever? Go look at the eroded stones of people without attendees - and you will not be there to tend whatever little garden match you've manicured. No one else will do this and we will be fighting a war against invasive shrubs you thought looked nice until the day we're invaded by flesh-eating newts!
4. Did you dig those plants in? Did you? Seriously? So you...(Checks notes)...disturbed the ground in or around a burial plot? It. Is. A. Criminal. Offence! You have no idea what might be 'scattered' there. Sometimes, neither do we! Well done. You have performed your first illegal exhumation.
5. Did you honestly dig into the ground at the bottom end of a mountain cemetery? Like, you actually put your hands in the soil? Where the rainwater and natural slope will mean anything buried and leaking from uphill will travel down? FML.
6. It is not yours.
7. It is still not yours.
8. Yes, you might not like plain grass or weeds or whatever else you think nature hates you with, but please see points 2, 6, and 7, then be amazed as we mow it down anyways because 98% of the OTHER people demand the grass is kept to a single inch high. I do not love these people either. But I cannot strim around your single unauthorised personal daisy.
9. To the people who plant ON the grave plots, and I mean directly above ... Just why? You know who's paying for repairs to subsiding headstones? And the extortionate fees for registering a technical exhumation to do that (because that's what it'll end up being and we don't set those fees)? Unfortunately, you. Please don't.
I made the mistake of thinking I could find 'quiet writing time' at my mother's house. I have made this mistake before. I have promised myself I would learn. I brought a textiles college student with me (son) to distract le Mother. Did it work?
Did it fuck?
Anyone else want a cup of tea or a sandwich? I've got about twenty in rotation...
Do I have the electrical schematics for the buildings I manage? Or schematics for the lead piping? Old groundworks plans from when the Romans invaded?
No.
Sunshine, the closest I have to those for the house I actually physically own and live in is the original Minecraft render of my floorplan created by my then six year old son.
But do you have--
No. The answer is no. If I ever come into possession of wiring plans, I shall burn them. No one gets these. No one.
Have not actually put a pen to paper or typed a single thing.
Have done thinking. Many Thinkings. So many Thinkings of things to be thunk and added to the mulch pot of my writing.
And, and this is very important, at no point will I ever put any of this into a shat gpt (TM) or other monstrosity and deign to call it writing! I would rather have gouged out my grey matter and dedicated my life to designing the new semi colon.
The thinking will always be mine. The writing will always be mine. The generating, the pain, the unbelievable ecstacy of walking the story with my characters, the shame and guilt when I've added yet another bloody 'e' to the end of a word that hasn't seen an 'e' since Chaucer! That's mine.
And I will shed the blood in the same way I lick at the tears when they reach my lips -- knowing it's honest.
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I, a person for whom instruction booklets are extracurricular activities or problem-solving guides for after you've put the thing together: This teenager, yes? You are saying it now needs to learn a skincare routine? Right. No, that's fine. Fine. Yeah. Routines are good. Right.
I do some of my writing at the local curry takeaway, and a lot of that is handwritten. The gentlemen who work there are lovely and if I being anything to do while I wait for my food, they're attentive, ask me about it, and encourage it. So, my handwritten work gets a lot of attention because it's quite neat handwriting and I like weird coloured inks.
Inevitably, the question gets asked, "What are you writing?"
And I, now a million miles in and sinking further, fast because this conversation only ever goes one way, and does so like that fuel tanker in the movie where the car's chased up a mountain and outpaces it to the summit before realising they both have to come down (take a breath here), say, "I am writing a book."
"I love reading. What sort of book is it?"
And I don't know if you've ever seen someone use the 'strikethrough' command, physically, in real-life, but it looks like this:
"Oh, it's a gay romance, enemies to lovers, physics-based magic system, coming-of-age tale, story of a boy with epilepsy who really doesn't want to Save The World (TM), did I mention gay romance? Shit, I mentioned romance, now they'll think it's a standard romanstacy, I didn't mean for it to be this way!, already three books drafted, women are epic, sibling relationships save the day, fantasy book."
"I like fantasy books. Have you read Harry Potter?"
And I smile politely, bite my tongue off in every universe I might live in, and wonder why I didn't just bring my crochet with me.
Last night, finished dinner and grabbed the Big Book of Herbs to do some productive hyperfocus rather than sink into the hole of Scrolling Doom. Stumbled upon the very first herb in the book...so, not that surprising, really, which happened to be the humble yarrow.
In the UK, this thing is ubiquitous, a 'weed'. And like most weeds here, it was once a decent salad accompaniment (looking at you, tiny pink mustard flowers in the lawn!) and held a special place in the herbalist handbook.
I'm definitely not a herbalist, nor a seeker of alternative medicine. I usually have very specific goals for focusing the hyperfocus -- procrastination. In this case, I will use the knowledge to fill my writing or spin ideas, or add it to the mulch pot of writing life.
And yarrow is a worthy addition -- most herbs and plants are a worthy addition in some ways, but this one is serendipity. A long time ago (probably last week), yarrow would have been used to staunch blood loss, regulate menses, treat toothache, and... make tea, which did all of those things.
And we kind of just look at it like ground cover on crack with a hint of 'that's slightly pretty in the moonlight and would probably take me too long to remove from the car park 'garden', anyways'.
The little warrior in me wants to start making information boards on the 'weeds' we see thrive between the gaps in our concrete pavers, add notes to the 'this is a lovely hedgehog, don't we think they're cute?' plastic boards we use to ease our guilt that we're still strimming the damn lawn in November, apart from This-One-Patch.
Imagine Dark elementals cultivating a moonlight garden for themselves and looking at this plant with the sort of gentleness we reserve for the last ladybug on our greenhouse roof. Yarrow leaves will aid in the composting of wheelbarrows of off cuts, drastically reducing the time decomposition takes -- a Dark elemental would crave that sort of advantage.
Dead people blocking up your sewerage system? Feed me, Seymore!
Anyways, this is yet another reminder that, when you're writing, you're also thinking about writing, and that ability to be open to everything as an additive to your mulch pot needs to be toggled to 'on'.
Diary Entry: Thursday 30th May 2024
It annoys me that I have to write something like this to get my 445 words so that I can keep my streak up.
Mostly, I annoy myself. I should have done some writing this morning but I didn't end up sleeping until 2, maybe 3 am so getting up at 6 was always going to be a struggle. I'd like to say I could blame it on my cycle (which I hate) or something else, but I suspect the erratic sleeping over the past few days has more to do with an underlying stress issue.
Work? Probably.
Anyway, it leaves me here journalling for four hundred words.
Is there anything inherently wrong with this? Probably not other than I don't do journalling and it annoys me that I haven't wanted to force myself to write for the last few days. I've been quite impressed with the stuff with Sallow as well.
I think I don't want to look at cutting out chapters. That might be my big issue. Yet, I think it probably does have to be done. I worry that the book is too slow in some senses, though I've written it in a way that makes sense to me.
Currently, I'm looking at around 200,000 words which is 80,000 too long. There are big chunks of it that can be hacked out but equally, there are bits of it that I feel definitely have to stay. It has evolved a lot over the past two to three years, fair play. And the main thing to celebrate is that it's got past the complete first draft at all.
I find myself now wanting to play with the characters - Worldbuilder disease? — and really feeling like I need to be reading more, especially around the grammar and construction conventions. But then I worry that I'm not spending my time writing and end up in that strange spiral which never even seems to close so you don't have the finality of closure even through the continuous contractions.
Anyways, I'm going to try and do something productive for the last 100 words and 13 minutes and fill in some more character bios.
See, I can't remember being in this space. I saw the date that said 'May' and thought, what the hell was I doing in May? What was I writing in May? Where?
The length of time doesn't bother me so much any more. And that is a lie - of course it bothers me, but I'm trying to learn how not to let that grip me as fear.
Do we always write as though we're not going to wake up tomorrow? Is there always a latent fear that we're going to get so far in this thing we're doing and then never get to see the finish line?
Of all the modifications that could be made for me, I didn't expect to find the most perfect one at Mornant.
And Ffion has been gone for three years now, so this is Garan's idea - however that's come about.
Perhaps I'm being far too egotistical. There's no reason that this should be for me rather than merely useful for me. Garan has been adding layers and odd ends to the decking from Ffion's house to the lake since he was able to, I've even helped him attach some of the rails along the sides, but we haven't been on real speaking terms since his sister left and it's...difficult to be around him sometimes.
So no, it is probably just the foundation of another of his projects.
But...
"You found it then," Garan says from behind my right shoulder. I don't turn to look. If I'm honest, I'm really quite content here and I don't want to have to perform.
But he enters my vision on my right and...Siz would scream. That glorious pathetic screech that's unnatural coming from a man his size. Siz has only ever bathed alone or in some sort of scheduled time frame which means the amount of aunts and uncles that could lay claim to seeing him careening naked along a beach is kept to the absolute minimum.
I, however, have grown up splashing around wading pools with my sister and our family. I do have *some* fond memories of being around water. Siz asked me once how I was so comfortable bathing in the same room as him - once he'd managed to make sure a piece of cloth covered any delicate areas.
"We don't wear much at the Cadear," I'd answered and leaned back. It was childish of me, but it was, and still is, a rare occasion that I'd be the comfortable party in our social meetings. "Me and Kra bathe together. Saves hot water. It's not anything I haven't seen before."
Siz had looked horrified and he'd even tried to cover more of himself underwater - I'm sure he had. "Seriously, Braw? Like, with your sister?"
I look back on that exchange with no little amount of pride. I've never kept such a straight face before in my life.
And then it cracked.
"Siz," I started, halfway to patting his hand in reassurance but thinking the better of it when I thought he might recoil in horror. "I'm enjoying the best joke I'll ever be allowed with you. No, I don't bathe with Kra anymore, you fruit. But I do tend to always have someone hovering whenever I'm near a bath and the amount of times I've woken up naked because my clothes have had to be changed is astonishing. You get used to not caring."
That isn't true, as such. It's not that I don't care anymore but I've made an uneasy peace with not having much of a choice.
Which brings me back to the man dipping into the lake beside me. "The little...stall for you," he says, gesturing to the water. The bracelets along his arm jangle together like wind chimes made of small bones. "What do you think?"
"For me?" I ask, narrowing my eyes at him while tilting my head. "And stall? Like a--"
"Little 'orse box, yeah. Come on. What do you think?"
Well.
"It's...did you really just put this in for me?" I ask. I can't have heard that right.
My feet are comfortably braced against a submerged step that allows my legs to extend long but will always keep a bend in the knee. I don't know how he's done it, but he's also managed to raise the ground or set something on the bed to make the water shallower towards my shoulders - if I try to lie down, my head will be on the moss of the bank. The only downside I can see is that this will be prime resting ground for the waterfowl once I've left it for the day, but that's only going to enamour me to the idea of thinking up new ways to cook the damn things.
Garan pushes a wave of water my way - it buffers against something and just ripples along the surface. So there's even a little breakwater worked into this?
"If you like it, I did. If you don't, it's for washing. So do you like it? There you are. Binary yes or no. You don't have to use so many words."
"Shut up," I tell him under my breath and try to sink lower. I can. To an extent. This is remarkably...accommodating. If I... seize here, I won't have to worry so much about drowning. I don't actually think it'll be possible to unless I'm spectacularly unlucky and end up on my face. That would be glorious. I'd end up with my ass in the air, dribbling or foaming at the mouth. Mornant deserves better. "Fine, yes," I tell him. "Thank you."
"Gwir, that sounded painful. You okay?"
I groan. He grins.
But the truth of it is that it's...kind of him. In the evening sun of the late summer, this part of Mornant catches the light until it hides behind the treeline of the forest. The lake has been in the sunlight all day and it's as warm as a bath now. I've spent many days, late afternoons, and early evenings sat either on the banks or the slowly encroaching wharf, that Garan's also been building, with my feet dangling in the water. Ffion offered to build me a raft once but one look at Kra saw me decline as I ran memories of her bleeding from her mouth and wailing in pain through my mind.
No, the banks are enough for me.
So I've thought.
"Did you really do this for me?" I ask. We're on better terms than last year, Garan and I, but I didn't think we were so close that we'd be making gifts for each other. I'll have to ask Sophie for good sailcloth.
Shrugging, Garan doesn't seem bothered. "Aye, but it's mostly out of pity. And you smell if you've been on Eluned all day."
I snort. "She smells. I just...transport it for her."
"Well now you can be clean." As if to reinforce the point, he rolls a ball of soap around his arms and chest, before offering it over to me. I hadn't actually planned to come here to wash - I'd more or less slipped into the water with the childish hope that no one would notice. I haven't been in a lake in...
As long as I can remember, probably.
I just saw the opportunity and took it. "Thank you," I tell him again. I don't know if it would be enough if I kept telling him until Yule. Do you know how much this means? You couldn't. I don't think I do.
I take the ball of soap from him and roll it along an arm. By the time I'm finished at my shoulder, he's already worked his own arms into a lather and is using the suds to wash through his hair. There are a few children at the opposite edge of the lake, splashing and shouting in the shade. A family off to my left side is just finishing their own swimming session - I've seen them there since a handspan ago.
Further to my left, someone's lit a cooking fire and this evening is going to be a lazy progression to tonight. It's easy enough to tell that from where I'm sitting. I'm looking forward to settling down in the wayhouse a little ways outside the village and I can just about imagine the feel of the new straw in the mattress. I almost don't want to go home tomorrow.
"It's... Is it too rude to ask why?" I ask. Garan just looks at me with soap sinking down into one eye. I use the silence to carry on. "Not because I don't want you to have done it, but I don't know what's expected after something like this. I don't have my father's tithe yet..."
Waving my words away, Garan shakes his head before dunking it and clearing it of the froth. "No, no, it's not for tithe. I thought you'd appreciate it, that's all. I don' want anythin' for it."
"You made it--"
"Aye, and if you didn't use it, I'd find something else that it could do, don' worry. Look, you can be in the lake when your sister comes down. With more clothes on," he says hurriedly, and I find my face is suddenly warm. "You want something else for your hair?" he asks and I'm taken aback.
Why? It's soap. It's all soap in the end. Why would I want anything different for my hair? "No?" I offer. "Do other elementals use something different for their hair?" I ask. Perhaps that's what it is. Garan has seen far more of my culture's practices than I have. Maybe there's a reason for his question that's perfectly acceptable. Maybe it's me that's the odd one out here.
Again.
But he laughs, and I'm not sure how to take that. Is that because I'm asking the wrong question or is it because I'm asking questions at all? Ffion was always much easier to deal with - much more direct. If I didn't know something with Ffion, she'd tell me or she'd let me know when I asked. This man has always been something...out of reach. He's not unreadable - there are very few people who truly are - but he's...he makes me question everything I think.
"Even humans use different things..." I hope it's not the look on my face that's caused him to stop there, but the playfulness leaves his features. "You're serious."
Gwir. Shouldn't I be? Truth, I don't know how this works. I look away.
"Hey, don't... Jude, don't just shrink away. I thought you were joking, that's all. It's not a big thing."
The problem is, Garan, that I didn't know it was a thing at all.
"Look," he continues, "it's just a question. I don' know if you have something else you use. You could. I don't know every elemental that walks the island. Maybe you only like one smell or sommat. Jude..."
"I wasn't going to wash," I say, rolling the soap back to him over the surface. Gwir, I'm a child.
But this looked like it was going to be a quiet evening without anyone else on the lake that would interfere. Somewhere I could test my limits patiently and silently. Somewhere I could see what it felt like to dip more than my ankles into the water. And now it's not. Now, it's full of questions over what I know and what I don't know, where I've been sheltered and where I've been able to escape enough to grow.
Over soap.
All this over soap.
"Don't leave," Garan calls as I find the ridges of the side shelves and make to stand. "You were here first. Let me rinse the rest off and I'll go."
"No--"
Because I don't want that either. I don't want any of this. I don't want you to have to have built this little pool just for me, to make these accommodations for my presence.
"-- Mornant's your home," I protest. "I'm the one that doesn't belong here."
When I look up, and it's only the briefest glance that I intend, he looks shocked. And not a coy, Gwir-were-you-really-naked-shocked, but the sort of pale skin, open mouth and wide-eyed shock that stalls me in my movement.
"You're made of the energy on this island. You... belong wherever you are."
And now I'm shocked. Because really? I've heard that sentiment from three-year-olds before, but I find it usually tends to drain away by the time those three-year-olds become jaded teenagers and then it's completely scoured from existence in adulthood. Perhaps one or two harkbacks to childhood will remain. I may get a discount on the tithe I need to present in exchange for cheese...
"It's a lovely sentiment," I begin. "But rarely one that survives contact with the real world. Thank you, Garan. It's a kind gesture but I'm not ready--"
"Stay," he says, reaching out. I'm barely aware that I'm half in the water and half out, reaching for my towelling cloths. Again, I'm genuinely unbothered by it, but it is...unorthodox. "I know you're an irritable goat but this is my fault. I didn't mean to intrude, just thought you could use the company. I'll go. Do me a favour and come back to the house after though, yeah?"
I find myself sinking back under the waterline as he stands.
It's funny. I thought I did want to be alone out here, but as I hear his steps recede, I'm not so sure anymore. Suddenly, this lake seems rather lonely.
