Why is it said: ‘If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again,’ but also: ‘If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got’? Why is accepting defeat considered a bad thing, but facing up to reality a good thing?

I’ve been doing the same thing for years now: at the start of the year (or, if I’m organised, the end of the previous one), I buy a specific kind of desk diary: page a day, ring bound so it can be opened flat. Over the years, I’ve discovered that The Works sell exactly this kind of diary, slightly larger than A5, for £4, so that’s where I now get them from.

The intention is that I use it to write upcoming appointments etc, but also check at the start of each month/week/day and write in things that I need to do, things that I will do, and cross off things I have done.

Only, if you know me at all well, you’ll realise that it never works out like that. Scattered around my nightmare study there are neat little books dating back several years and full of blank pages for the days that have gone by unplanned and unmanaged, because, of course, I can’t bear to throw them away, because I know that NEXT year will be the one when I start organising my life.

And tomorrow will be the day when I start writing again…

Tomorrow marks the end of the official first quarter of the year (91 days this time). So does that mean that I’m a quarter of the way through the work I need to do to publish my book before the end of the year, as I semi-committed myself to? Probably not – in fact, not by a long way. Since I published ‘Single to Sirkeci’ in 2017, the proposed sequel, ‘The Long Way Back’ has not so much been a work in progress as in regress – or at best, stasis

When I first envisaged turning my blog posts into a book about my travels, I massively underestimated the amount of work and time it would take. By about a year and a half after I got back from the original journey, I’d finished my third editing pass through, and began the process of laying it out as a book. That was when I realised that I still had almost 200,000 words – twice what was reasonable for a book of this type.

Around that time, I had a conversation with my artist friend Douglas Jeal about knowing when a piece of creative work is ‘finished’, and the danger of continuing to ‘tweak’ it, a topic which also came up at a meeting of writers which I went to a few days ago. To me it seems there is a difference between a painting or sculpture and a book, which needs a satisfying narrative conclusion, as well as a recognition of that ‘sweet spot’ where nothing more needs to be done.

I couldn’t help thinking that my book didn’t score well on either of those. I had just said a sad farewell to Prague, and moved back in with my ex-husband in the hope that I could nudge him into finally putting the house on the market (which was still not resolved two years after the divorce was granted), so that we could finally draw a line under our marriage, and go our separate ways for good.

While I continued to hack away at the text, I was acutely aware that life was continuing to happen to me, and that a ‘happy ending’ – or even a vaguely positive and upbeat one – still seemed out of my reach…

…to be continued (perhaps)

Composed on a walk this morning and jotted down on the margins of a Killer Su Doku book while sitting in the Rock Gardens on Southsea seafront (for anyone who’s interested in how I write my poems).

Blue skies and bright sunshine
lure me into the paths
of bitter darts of cold,
flung into my face
and sapping my body of motion.

Broken blossoms scatter and skitter
along winter-cracked pavements,
crushed like yesterday’s promises.
At least the autumn leaves
can be satisfied in knowing
that they’ve had their time.

Brief patches of shelter
bring moments of balmy reflection
on better times to come,
until the onslaught recommences,
and I recall that springtime
can be the cruellest time –
as someone almost said.

Linda Rushby Saturday 23 March 2024

This is just a bit of word-play inspired by a recent conversation about Jung’s idea of the shadow which dwells in all of us, the side of ourselves we want to hide from the world.

I don’t often write rhyming verse, but I do like to use alliteraton and slant rhymes.

The Shadow

You cannot see me,
I am an empty space,
a void, a vacuum,
a black hole,
beyond the bounds
of visibility.

A nullity, a negative,
a nothingness,
I slip beneath your notice,
and past the perimeter
of your perceptions.

Linda Rushby 16 April 2023

Memorial

Bronze plaque on a wooden bench
commemorates a life.

A woman,
born two years after me,
died a quarter century ago.

‘Loving wife and mother,
who loved this place.’

Some of us are blessed with joy,
and some with time.

Linda Rushby 5 April 2023

Spring Walk

Bare branches inked
against a pale sky.

Hawk hovers,
then passes over me.

Under the trees,
sounds of birdsong,
earth-smells of leafmould;
rotting remains of
last year’s life
nurturing new generations.

White chalk crumbles
over smooth grey flint,
prized by our ancesters.

Everything is held
in potential.

Linda Rushby 5 April 2023

A couple of days ago, I got a notification on Facebook that there had been two visits to my Solent Green FB page – which suggested to me that someone (I think I can guess who) had visited it to see if I’d posted any more poems.

I hadn’t, although I did actually write two more in the days following the last one I posted – scribbled on a scrap of paper when I was out for a walk while staying at the family holiday cabin in the Surrey Hills. When I got back to the cabin, I found there was a problem with my laptop (which has since resolved itself), and the next day I went to stay at my daughter’s for my birthday/Easter weekend, so I haven’t done any more since – until this morning, when inspiration struck again.

So I thought I’d rescue the scrappy piece of paper from my handbag and type them all up.

Blocked

I used to have a writer’s head
but when I looked, the muse had fled.

I thought I had a line today,
I tried to chase another one,
but then the first one ran away
and I was left with none.

My brain is locked,
my writing’s blocked.
What else is there to say?

Linda Rushby 4 April 2023

Open your door and snuff the air,
like a fox emerging from its earth,
survivors from their dugouts.
Like a curious cat,
scenting adventure,
or a cautious one,
checking for changes
from the familiar.

Under those lowering skies,
between those scattered showers,
seeking the truth:
bright patches of colour among dark leaves;
snatches of birdsong among the traffic.

Like a heart waiting for hope.
Like a lost poet, seeking the next word.

Linda Rushby 2 April 2023