On Sunday, I sat down to write. Not the kind of writing intended for the world (although maybe one should not look to separate them out) but the I’m going to lie back on my pillow like Audrey Hepburn, grab my journal and produce something beautiful kind of writing, just because I want to kind of writing.
Clearly my mind on a Sunday had a rather large opinion of herself.
The thing is, as I grabbed my coffee (there was also coffee) and told my children yes, they could watch cartoons on the iPad (there was also small children and screens to tend to), I also grabbed my phone. I can see you nodding knowingly now and saying to yourself “She shouldn’t have grabbed her phone” and you would be correct.
And to add to the horror, I mindlessly clicked open my email to read a couple of messages that were not of the Audrey Hepburn tootle with your poetry variety.
In fact, they were more of the little stones of hard reality falling into your stomach variety, which landed with a soft clunk in the spot in my stomach I had seemingly reserved for “good writing”.
Now what’s interesting about this (you don’t think I would share this with you unless there was something vaguely interesting about it do you?) … what’s interesting about this is not that I fancied myself as Audrey Hepburn or that I even entertained the possibility of writing anything good, but the fact that a little seed of my mind that I was unaware of had decided that for me to write, the conditions for needed to be, well… writerly ones.
My mind had written:
CONDITIONS FOR GOOD WRITING TO OCCUR:
- Be in a writerly good mood, where you entertain the possibility of your imaginary audience breaking into spontaneous applause at your words.
- Be comfortable. LOUNGE WITH COFFEE.
- Make sure ALL THE THINGS are taken care of.
Basically, a horrendous set of circumstances to conform to based on the reality that they NEVER HAPPEN.
{Please note: Capital letters do not mean I’m shouting, I’m just passionate and animated}.
And I thought to myself, isn’t it an interesting thing that you did not even realise you had been waiting for the circumstances to be right in order to begin.
What does this have to do with horses? Well, everything. Because it has to do with life. And life and horses are the same thing.
So, I’m sending this out there as a reminder that if your list for something you want to do, continue on with or complete looks like my total twaddle of a list above, you must discard it immediately.
And you must replace it with:
CONDITIONS FOR STARTING, CONTINUING & COMPLETING
- Absolutely nothing but the willingness to do so and moving half a step beyond that place.
From the hidden thoughts of my unconscious brain to yours,
Onwards.
❤️ Jane
