“Holiday writing - birds”
The image is the view across the lane outside our Devon holiday cottage. I found it very calming to look out every day of our holiday and to notice the subtle changes in the sky, the colours, whether the wind was moving the trees.
The cottage was so peaceful it was something of a surprise one morning to be startled by the squawking of birds. I immediately went to the window and watched a small flock of birds who were airborne just above the tree in the centre of the photo.
Usually after a few brief notes or a voice recording I work on a piece of writing on my PC. On holiday all I had was my notepad so it was interesting to see how the poem evolved over a few days. The process was more messy perhaps, and more repetitive, but neither of those are a bad thing. Lots of re-writing, scribbles in the margin, arrows here and there, questions and suggestions to myself, "New line?" and "Yes to this order?"
Ultimately I used five sides of A4 paper before I was happy. I witnessed the birds on 15th October which was the fourth day of our holiday. By this point we had settled into a pattern of very leisurely mornings and late breakfasts. I think if we'd had a schedule I would not have written a poem about the birds. I might have heard them chattering to each other but that would have likely been the end of it.
There is a message here that I must remember. Good things happen when I slow down and make time to just be with myself and whatever is occurring in the moment. When I do this my curiosity surfaces and it is very closely linked to my creativity. Perhaps my first thought about the circling flock was, "What are they doing?"
Looking now at the progress of the poem in my notebook it's interesting to see that the poem began almost as a direct record of what I'd seen from the window. By the time I was done I realised that I was wanting to say too much, there was too much detail. The tree the birds chose had a couple of dead branches that reached skyward and looked quite dramatic even from a distance. I had been convinced at the start that it was necessary to mention these branches in my work. After a few days of working on it on and off I realised I could edit out that part and improve the poem. This is creativity versus the full truth!
I still needed the voice recorder on my phone because hearing my work via the recording is very different to reading it and simultaneously trying to be a neutral editor. Even though the voice is mine, it feels similar to hearing the voice of another person which gives distance.
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