Putting pen to paper, why write?

As I have been looking through my journals and pieces of writing I have done over the years, I have been trying to explore the reason why I feel so strongly about trying to write.

I started and completed a creative writing course a few years ago, the course was excellent (run by the OU and I highly recommend it if you are unsure where to start).  The emphasis on this course was to write fiction, and how to use language to form a narrative, the setting, the story, the characters and then how to use various tools to enable you to write.   The short story I finished as my final piece was about an unseen ghost, and I was quite pleased with it (if I can find it I will add it on here someday).

But now I look back at some of my non-fiction writing too and see that I have written poems,  descriptive pieces, lists and thoughts throughout various times in my life.  Sometimes I have been happy, sometimes sad, sometimes very angry and a lot of the time when I have been looking for answers.

That is when I realised that, maybe, one of the reasons I write is as therapy?

I can write the thoughts in my head much better than I can articulate them at times.  Especially when I am feeling happy or sad, as an emotional (some may say highly emotional!) person, there are times when the words I need to use to signify how I feel get muddled and garbled, and of course, I am absolutely useless if I get upset or tearful.  There is really then no hope of me trying to communicate my thoughts, emotions and needs.  This is when I write and through the writing I become coherent.

Over the years I have kept gratitude journals, wrote memoirs from my childhood, wrote letters about grief, letters about my own flaws, my wants and my needs.  I don't need to show them to anyone, but the writing is a way of me telling my story, or sharing my anxieties, my hopes and my fears and it works for me to then be able to read it back.

And as with any form of good therapy, through my writing, I then feel as if I am talking to someone who is listening to only me.   It is 'me' that is listening to me.

Writing gives me a space, a pause to stop and be, a chance to read what I have written over and then perhaps to realise that 'yes, I need to discuss that' or 'you need to get outside in nature, Ali', whatever the advice I decide to give myself.

Just as I can escape into a good book, I can also become immersed in the process of writing, it feels good to be able to do that sometimes.

There is also the joy, and the power of putting pen to paper.  I feel then as if I regain ownership of my voice, my feelings, my life and this is a then a tangible thing, not just a spoken conversation that can be remembered or forgotten but an actual object.  A real thought, emotion or moment that becomes more vivid and more lucid because I have taken the time to write it.

So perhaps, this is the main reason I write, not just because I have an imagination with wonderful stories to tell but also that I have a voice, and that sometimes the person I need to listen to the most is myself.

Ali
x

Attempted Cookery Book Edit

I hoard cookery books.  I freely admit this and I know I may have a slight problem with wanting to collect, read and sometimes cook from cookery books!

Back in the day before I started my culinary book obsession I used to have a couple of magazine subscriptions - one to Vegetarian Good Food and the other to delicious.  Every month I would scour these magazines and then happily rip the recipes I fancied from them to put in my folder or recipe card file.  

That was before it became easier to buy cookery books and my recipe file still lives on to this day!  Then when I stopped work to have and raise our family, my life included buying cookery books on how to feed babies and toddlers, along with the addition of some of my earliest and most loved cookery books.   Delia Smith's Summer and Winter books, anything by Rose Elliot and also Rick Stein's Fruits of the Sea and Seafood books.  This was a time when I was in my late 20s, early 30s and we started to grow our own produce, keep hens and were pescatarian (only ate vegetarian food or fish).

A move abroad to live in Calgary, Canada with a restricted weight limit saw the first 'cull' of my precious cookery books.  It seemed sensible to only take 10 with me......

That quickly backfired as I discovered the joys of Indigo and Chapters bookstores complete with their  massive cookery sections!  The long cold Calgary winters meant weekend trips to the bookstores with the kids for coffee, book readings in the kids section and the chance to roam the bookshelves ourselves.  I moved back to Scotland with over 30 cookery books, and being able to watch BBC Canada meant the first time I watched Nigella Lawson or Jamie Oliver was over there and it was the ultimate comfort to living abroad watching British cooks and chefs on TV.  PBS also showed Two Fat Ladies and a friend sent me a box set of River Cottage dvds.  The 4 years abroad saw me not only develop as a home cook but also plan my herb garden, veg plot and start dreaming about keeping our own hens again.

I digress!  At the moment we are completing the final touches to the redecoration of our kitchen/dining and family room (repainted in Blue Grey from Farrow and Ball - I love it!).  The last parts to be completed are the built in shelves that house part of my cookery book collection and therefore these books are now on the floor waiting for me to sort them out.

For a book lover and keen cook like myself this is not an easy task, therefore I have decided to try and categorise my collection into the following;

Waiting to be sorted! 

Old Favourites 

These are the cookery books that are on the shelves (custom made by Paul for me) next to my fridge. These old friends have sticky pages and notes written over them.  I also have a couple of books which used to belong to my Mum and I will never part with them.

Specialist 

Recipe books from a particular genre, be it vegetarian, organic, meat, Aga cookery, fish, preserving produce,  etc whatever!  I may not cook from them often but they are a really good reference.

Aspirational

These are books which inspire me to cook, either been recommended to me or I have read about them or watched something on television about them.  Again I probably don't cook from them that often but I do enjoy them.

Seasonal

I do seem to have rather a lot of Christmas Cookbooks!  I love Christmas and all the preparation and planning, again I have my favourites including one book which I have been making the Christmas cake recipe from for the last 15 years (never fails!).  We also have some outdoor cooking books, for BBQing although these sadly don't get used as often as I'd like living in the North of Scotland.

Travel inspired

I have a small amount of cookery books which I have purchased when returning from trips abroad.  These books almost become like bedtime reading as I re-live my trip by browsing through the recipes.  My favourite of these right now is Rick Stein's Long Weekends book, made even more wonderful by the fact that I visited two of the same locations as Rick in 2016!

Gift books

I am very lucky in that I have received cookery books as gifts from family and friends over the years.  I love these very much and always feel very connected to the person who thought of me when they bought me that book.

Alas I must now return to the hard task of trying to reduce my collection.  After all I do need to have some space on my shelves for the books I have yet to buy!

The books I am reading, cooking from and enjoying right now are;

Rick Stein's Long Weekends

Sarah Raven - Good Good Food

Donna Hay - Life in Balance

Trine Hahnemann - Scandinavian Comfort Food

If you lose me in a book store you will always find me in the cookery section!

Ali