Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Being Alone

The gods have conspired to make this a day I spend alone. Last night (Monday) I came home to an empty house. My fella has gone to visit his mum in Labrador - the step-dot was stepping out the door with her knap-sack as I arrived - on her way to her two-week stint with her mum and of course, my dear Hoagy is gone. How bizarre all this was. I spent the night watching I Capture the Castle on netflix and then a bunch of crazy Ted Talks. I ate toast with peanut butter and my best pal's delish marmalade. Oh and chips. Yes, I packed in the guilty pleasures and went to bed with a good book at ten. I slept somewhat fitfully as I am simply not used to being without an early warning system for invaders so I was rawther vigilant.

Truth is that I have not been truly alone (meaning without the beast) for nearly twelve years. The kids come and go, the man doesn't go off often but when they have all been gone at the same time I've had my faithful pal - a presence in the house. So I'm a bit weepy still.

This morning Gwen usually comes to write but she is over-burdened with paid work right now (not to be sniffed at in the harsh reality of being an entrepreneur) and so I will spend the day and another night without company. Several offered for me to come to their homes for visits etc... but I decided that being alone was what the universe had on offer so perhaps I'd better go with it.

Today I'd like to get caught up in my revision process. If I'm to finish by the end of this month (this revision anyway) I have some work to do. I have exactly twenty chapters to revise into Pinky's voice - probably a third of them are already in her voice - those ones are a snap - well ...duh! I have nine days. I was doing one and a half a day and had zoomed ahead a week ago but now I'm behind. I'll have to do more than two a day. I think I could do five or six today and that would leave me in a workable state for the following week and able to finish on time - especially since my weekend is also clear. What do you think?

I'm loving the process of this. I thought it would be very arduous but it isn't. Why? I ask myself. I think because Pinky is so vivid to me and therefore it is easy to think what she'd be noticing and commenting on.

Okay - enough chit-chat - I'm off to work. It is sunny and that is good. I don't have to drive anywhere, eat at anytime in particular or pay attention to the needs of one other being.  I'll comment later on how it goes.

5 comments:

Tricia J. O'Brien said...

While friends and family are a wonderful thing in life, being alone is a huge gift for a writer. Wishing you a great day!

Jan Morrison said...

There! I've worked a bunch of hours and I got a heck of a chunk done. About eight chapters were changed, dropped or amalgamated. Any whoozie I have 12 left to work with and of those five and a half are already in Pinky's voice so ... I think this will be do-able. Then on to the next part.

Trisha said...

I live alone and don't have a partner, so I get plenty of "me" time. I happen to love it though, which is fortunate. :)

Elizabeth Spann Craig said...

I love being alone...as long as I know there's an end to it at some point! Sounds like you got a lot of stuff done!

Anonymous said...

Jan - Oh, sometimes solitude can be a real balm. I think when we're alone we can really confront ourselves and besides, it's in those moments that we can take those ideas we've had and make them into stories. 'Alone time' is a treasure.