I’m trying to complete more writerly tasks this month. After all, I just invested in a sparkly new website (click here to visit it) so it seems I should be acting more writerly by, well, writing. However, my writing endeavours seem fragmented. I bounce between the two books I’m working on, not staying in one place long enough to make progress yet unable to settle in one world or the other. I’ve published two novels already so I know I can do this.
Maybe what’s causing such disarray in Tracey Gemmell Author World is the constant January storms buffeting the garden projects, the ongoing indoor construction that leaves brick dust on anything within a one-mile radius (only a slight exaggeration), hammering and sawing that even permeates my sleep long after the builders have left for the day, and last but not least, a poorly dog. (We’re both suffering from the lack of sleep.) It’s not like my life is any different to anyone else’s. I bet almost everyone reading this is trying to do too much. Maybe it’s just that writers have an exceptional need to shut out the world in order to create another on the page. This makes every distraction a tenfold disaster.
I’ll never be one of those writers who locks themselves away for hours, only to emerge with wonderful characters and plotlines fully formed. (Do these writers even exist?) Maybe I’m meant to ricochet between projects, spreading brain resources too thinly, accomplishing in four days what many would accomplish in two hours. Perhaps it’s not the builders or the storms or the dog at all. Maybe it’s me.
Case in point, my friends, and gardeners extraordinaire, Andi and Helen, arrive for their weekly session of garden restoration. This is not to be confused with gardening as in my garden it’s more like hand-to-hand combat. Anyway, we begin to work together on a wayward herbaceous border. Andi and Helen prepare a grid system, equipment laid out neatly, no weed left unturned, no plant left undivided, working left to right. Methodical. Rational. Effective.
Then there’s me: I look at one portion of a flowerbed and see what needs doing. On the way to get the fork I see a rose that needs tying in. Off to get the twine, I notice the new Hebe needs watering. On the way to get the watering can I see the pigeons have attacked the lilac branches again. I head to the house to get a shiny old CD to tie to the branches as a deterrent. Once in the house I automatically turn on the kettle and now have to find the biscuits. Outside again with the tea, who remembers what it was that needed doing in the initial flower bed?
Andi and Helen accept the tea with a wary look, and I’m not sure it’s a look that says I’m helping. But then Helen names my issue: she says I’m butterflying. What does that even mean? Helen says it means I’m flitting from job to job like a butterfly flits from blossom to blossom. We – the butterfly and I – will get the job done eventually but possibly not in the most energy efficient manner. There doesn’t seem to be a grid system in the way a butterfly plans its route. Or maybe there is but a butterfly grid system doesn’t use the square as its backbone. Which sounds a lot like me at the moment. All tangled ball of wool. No square. Yep. My name is Tracey and I’m a butterfly. I’m butterflying. There’s relief in knowing there’s a term for it.
I sit on my garden wall sipping my tea and ponder my new place in the animal kingdom. I realize I’m currently a butterfly in all aspects of my life. Even my travel planning is fragmented. I flit from continent to continent depending on the latest travel article I read, or that photo posted on social media. I have a trip booked in April to a small Greek island where cars are banned so I’ll be riding horses everywhere. But that’s it. I usually have three trips in the planning stages. I can’t even pick a continent at the moment! Do butterflies stick to one continent? I should check. What is the matter with me?
No wonder my writing is all over the place. I bounce between two books with different settings, structural needs, strengths, and weaknesses. I insert a chapter here, and taking out a charter there. I read from the beginning again to stop myself focusing on the fact there isn’t an end. I’m butterflying my way through even my fictional world. And I’m in charge there! Or am I?
Even writing this, I flit between messages from Hubby, who’s trying to get home from India, and answering questions from the kitchen cabinet fitter. I let the dog endlessly in and out and in and out, while ordering a light fitting. It’s exhausting, so it’s no wonder the books have huge plot holes and gaps and nonlinear timelines. Maybe it’s because it’s January. January should be renamed Butterfly Month as we bounce through all the projects we said back in 2023 we’d accomplish in 2024. Or not.
But enough of this. Butterflies get where they need to go, eventually, and so will I. I’ve been gifted a huge pad of paper and a huge box of markers (thanks, Cousin B!). I’m going to draw a grid system and whip those two books into shape. I’m going to work left to right, left to right across the page. No flitting allowed. I’m going to complete these books. And this garden. And my travel plans. Just you wait and see.
Butterflies be damned!
Butterfly image: Flickr, Timothy K Hamilton