Creative chaos? Or letting it grow? by Annie Try

     

      Ken and I went away in our motorhome for a few days at the very end of April. We had a lovely time - very relaxing because Flossie, our rather exuberant goldendoodle, loved it. When she wasn’t being taken for walks on the foreshore or digging on the beach, she sat in the passenger seat watching the world go by, which included people and very many dogs. She was wonderfully well-behaved in that she didn’t chew anything, or steal any food and settled very well in the motorhome. Her only problems were her desperation to greet every person and dog that she could, with us being pulled along as unwilling participants in her endeavours, and to sniff every wild plant on the foreshore and on-site.

But, dog aside, I wanted to write about the posters in the shower block, advertising #nomowmay. This wonderful initiative is to aid pollination by letting wildflowers grow for the insects. Although it wasn’t quite May when we left the site, I think the wardens had decided they had already begun the challenge because no-one mowed near our pitch and little plants, maybe selfheal, were peeping through the long grass.

When we arrived home our lawns looked as if they had exploded. In less than a week the grass had lengthened, white daisies and dandelions were dotting the green along with wild violets, forget-me-nots and various unidentified wildflowers, plus budding oxeye daisies. We usually leave a circle of the oxeyes, which look magnificent as they grow with the grass, but this year we have decided to take up the No Mow May Challenge for most of the main lawn (and maybe the rest of the garden as well) making a few paths to walk around and see what is growing. 

Only for May, of course! 

How can it feel so good to do so much less?

I’m not sure this approach will help me with my writing although it does seem to mimic what I do. I often write chaotically, the words spilling out of my mind onto the page. Sometimes I can’t think of names of characters I’ve already mentioned and simply write THE TEACHER or something else to help me keep in the flow. My manuscripts are full of  CHECK when I have put in dates or places, or even MAP IT. If I dare stop to write these down in a notebook it will halt me in my progress. Then there are little deviations that don’t need to be there and lots of common words, oft repeated. I suppose this equals mass growth of words peppered with wildflowers, or shall we call them weeds? And hanging onto the themes and storyline is similar to having paths through the wildness.

So perhaps my time sorting out all these points and doing a first edit of my chaotic script is the equivalent of what Ken (and maybe I) will be doing at the beginning of June, when mowing and taming the purposefully neglected lawns.

Meanwhile, let’s appreciate what happens when we let it all go wild.

Annie Try writes contemporary Christian fiction for adults and young adults. Her most recent novel ‘The Dangerous Dance of Emma JJ’ follows Em as she finds out more than she wants to know about herself and her past. Annie has an MA in Creative Writing and loves sharing her skills through book talks, school visits and creative writing workshops. www.annie-try.co.uk