‘When the sun shines grass will grow…’ Ron Huxter. It’s a fact in this part of the world and Ron imparted this, to my then much younger self, on a scrap of paper left in my lambing shed  in response to my panic  that ‘grass might not grow’ ( in time for what ever it was or that it might not be enough grass or the right kind of grass) Looking back now from an age that is close to that Ron was at the time and feeling familiar panic washing through me only minutes after getting out of bed that ‘my writing may never get published’ I realise that the two things are not necessarily The Same.

When the sun shines and the temps rise in the British spring there will be a tipping point in that energy and the grass will respond as it’s own genetics allow – depending on where the seed is growing – this is seasonality and then we conserve the grass and store it to feed the livestock in the winter. Simplistic but fundamentally true.

If I show up to my desk and write or edit and I find an Editor and design cover wear etc and I learn to publish then my fiction stories will make it out in to the world – the sun shining will have minimal impact – so in that it is rather more like milking dairy stock for a living – if you don’t milk them and store that and sell it then you have nothing – part of that is feeding them grass – in winter it is conserved grass and summer they can get it for them selves – but for that we return to the seasonality point about grass ‘when sun shines grass will grow…’  so to milk dairy livestock we need good grass and grass needs sun ( amongst other things)

This makes my brain wander the ‘A time to live and a time to die…’ type thoughts and I realise that there is a pattern to writing fiction that will roll through a cycle whether you call it ‘Write Rinse Repeat’ or Write Edit Copy-Edit Cover and Publish and that needs my energy applied to it. I am not the sun and now I am 60 I lack the monthly hormonal drives, ebbs and flows that kept my groove in life. Finding that ‘lost’ energy is often easier on a sunny day but I also find it true that in thick fog I can snug up and write and in truely miserable weather also – and that it is true that in comparison I would rather be outside in the sun than stuck indoors writing!

I long ago set things up so I can write outside in the sun – even if the screen is a little weird  and papers blow away and any exposed skin turns dark mahogany brown (- it probably goes a sore shade of red enroute to that point!)

Where am I going with these thoughts this morning? Second coffee I think.

I have had new ideas about Lucks Hill Riders Series triggered from the editorial feed back and it is ready to action but my energy has not gone there – it is pre sun shining I guess – I feel that the seeds  are planted and cultivated and weed free  but the season of growth hasn’t occurred – I feel it will but when I do not know.

I have written under a myriad of life’s challenges and in many different places and I have equally ground to a halt in bewilderment for no apparent reason or broken down under severe life related strain and I have learnt to leave everything ready to go for next time when ever I finish a session so that I can come back and start without having to grub around dusty papers or lost files.

I do feel that my energy is stiring and drawn towards the new shape of Lucks Hill Riders but nothing is showing above ground yet – unlike the local grass which is hitting the decks of the huge silage trailers as I type this already harvested as first cut silage. I am feeling some what ‘late winter and cold spring’, despite the sunshine, over my writing cultivations, and feel that if I drive over my ground too soon I will cause damage and leave huge ruts that I will then have to edit out.

A long winded way of saying – I have been doing house work and walking and art but not writing this week because I am not ready to roll and harvest this story 🙂

And I hurt my back Again.

It is also true that I am full of doubts and am tired of worrying about this fiction series and of the threat of being a failure at this too. A bigger part of me no longer cares either way.

My health is failing. My mum still struggles on in residential care suffering enormously with Dementia and husband still struggles to keep our main business on the road and neither of us can make anything out of our farm beyond the huge privilege we gave ourselves through our younger choices and actions to be living here now.

I think in turning 60 this year I fell over some unseen pinnacle and now I do not feel much at all with enthusiasm.

I hope it’s a phase. I hope it passes. But it’s true I feel like ‘yesterday’s people’ and closer to becoming a bench on the pier – I am not ‘today’s people’ and I have no ‘tomorrow people’.

So, the sun shines and grass grows and I try not to hurt my back. Again. 😀