SWALLOWS AND PLOT HOLES
The swallows are back! There had been only one until this morning when I saw two pairs flying not far away. I am hopeful that they will return to nest under our eaves as they have done for a few years. When I see them I can almost feel my heart lift! I love their beauty, the agility of their flight, the unmistakeable joyous chattering sounds they make, and if they did not return to make their nests outside our kitchen it would feel like a terrible loss.
When life feels dark something as small as a swallow can make can make a difference, make things brighter. “Fresh air and exercise do you good,” said our grandmothers, and now medical practice advises a walk to lift the spirit and the soul. It also does wonders for a writer who thinks words have packed their bags and gone to Magaluf for an extended holiday.
I need to lure them back with offers of polished phrases and beautifully crafted sentences, and I need to fill the empty well of creativity with things that existed before words: hills, flowers, birds, silence. Walking will not provide me with ready-made dazzling words, but celandines and garlic mustard and stitchwort in the hedgerows make pictures nicer than any on Instagram, and my buzzing mind will be quietened by the song of blackbird and mistle thrush.
I may not return and dash off elegant essays but I may be a step nearer to solving an intractable plot problem. For the first time I am writing a children’s book, a challenge in itself, but I have an extra difficulty in that although I know what happens at the beginning, and I know the end of the story, there is a chunk about two-thirds of the way in that is proving very tricky. Another problem is the mystery in the book that has to be solved – but so far I have not been able to solve it. I hope that as my feet pound the roads they will pummel my story into submission.
