Sabbatical News

So, how's it going? You may not care but I know some do so here is a wee update. I am coming to the end of week five of a thirteen week sabbatical.

During the first week I was weary. Chatting to a couple of colleagues who had recently enjoyed sabbatical leave I discovered that this was a common theme. People who work with people and spend a lot of time giving out - speaking or listening; writing or reading - invariably survive on adrenaline quite a lot. Take away the deadlines and the stimulation and your body, often for the first time for ages, realises it can wind down. During my first week I successfully tidied the office, went to the gym and had a haircut. That's about it. Although I must say that having only one appointment in my diary for a week was both fun and stressful. I am used to waking up in the morning and running through a mental check-list of what faces me today. I had to keep checking that the answer was really 'nothing'. I also noted that not thinking ahead or planning ahead was weird. I am used to spending downtime contemplating stuff to happen in the future. I wonder at what point in the thirteen weeks I will need to place next spring in the mental sorting tray?

Week two was holiday. We travelled up to the north-east and visited a few old haunts from our Chester-le-Street days. One encounter was particularly helpful. Twenty-five years on, someone, a teenager then, thanked us for our work with young people. 'You made us feel we were the most important thing you did each week but by the time of the Sunday night meetings you must have been knackered.' That was lovely. Also true and we are glad it was noticed.

Returning home for week three I got going on the novel. I have always planned that this time would be about writing and had two ideas for books without a clear notion as to which one to pursue. Shortly before going off duty a new friend had advised me to go with the novel rather than the factual book (the other idea being volume three of my Christian help manuals) as it would be a more varied experience and thus more like a sabbatical escape. It is funny how people who barely know you can give you good advice. I took it.

The novel I have sketched out is a narrative at the moment, not a story. I used a method I read about from Will Self where I put every idea, scene and character on a Post-it note and then re-arranged them into order. Using several colours of Post-it I managed to get the various narrative streams to converge. I read a few chapters I had knocked out some years ago. To be honest the quality of the writing shocked me. It was excellent. Nothing seems to improve style like writing a lot and this stuff was from the days when I was working as a writer part-time. Could I ever get to that standard again? I realised that the answer was not necessarily to get on with the novel but to do more writing about anything (my journal suddenly sparked into life). But the existence of a table of Post-its helped me to begin inhabiting the world of Marco (working title) again.

Week four I read a lot. Not on any theme but in a wide and varied way. I needed to observe others' style and beware of copying any one writer too much. And I had to get some new facts in my head. The ones I had been hanging around with were not good enough. I played with the Post-its. I now had a tale but it was a bit too Dan Brown and my target was slightly higher up the brow. Then I had a moment. What if this (dramatic music in head) became (dan dan daaaan) that! A twist. Not one I ever saw coming so the reader won't either. Clever old me.

On Thursday of that week I wrote a short story in one sitting. It was quite dark and based on one scene of a screen-play I had helped a friend conceive some years back. But it came out quickly and will be finished with a single edit soon. I say quite dark. It was rural January midnight. Where had that stuff been hiding? Oh the sweet catharsis of murdering an imaginary parishioner slowly.

It is week five. No work on the novel but much reading and musing. When I am being a writer I write all the time. This is the point I needed to get to. I wander around constructing sentences, dialogue and writing descriptions in my head.

I have spent little money this month. I bought two DVDs, two books and a new jacket.

Twice in my life I have been given a story. An idea has popped into my head so completely formed that seeing it as God-given is as good a way to describe it as I can muster. With these stories I know they are given to be told and they will help people. They will work. They are probably not to be published for money but shared for free.

This week I have another such story. All I needed in order to write it down was to go and see the world from the point of view of the narrator. I needed to be high up and looking out to sea at an island. Luckily I live where that is possible and this morning I walked up to Cadbury Camp to see what I could see. It is an astonishing place. An Iron Age hill fort. I was alone there. When built it was probably surrounded by sea on three sides. A perfect defensive strategy.

The People of the Island (working title) is on its way.

So, says TCMT, you had two ideas for books and you're writing a short-story collection? Do you know, I may be doing just that. It's fun.

But I have three appointments next week.