Life Update

Tags

editing, India, Living in the moment, Living on a boat, Narrowboat, travelmemoir, writing

I followed Zadie Smith’s advice on editing, which is if possible leave your finished book for a year, if you can’t do that then leave it for three months, then when you go back you will be able to see what needs doing and be able to be ‘its reader instead of its writer.’

A writer who has stopped writing can be a a funny creature. Writing gives me a sense of purpose, occupies my thoughts and is my support system. I found it weird at first, although I did enjoy the typing break. The last couple of weeks I nearly cracked and started early, but I resisted and by the time the day came, I had totally got into not doing it and it was actually hard to get started again.

It’s similar to how I feel under the current circumstances. At first I was restless all the time, talking about when we would be able to get back to Cambodia or India. Now I have accepted that we won’t be going there until next winter. We have both booked the first two weeks of May off work to go on a two week boat trip though. We live on a narrowboat, and so have a holiday right there, but haven’t as yet done a long trip or more than one night away at a time.

This three months of not writing coincided with November lockdown and the post Christmas restrictions which are still in place here in the UK. It’s really been a lesson in living day to day and accepting things as they are, whilst being totally present as my head hasn’t been in my book. I’ve really appreciated and enjoyed things such as a takeaway coffee from the supermarket when we’re out shopping and getting essential supplies once a week, and the excitement of the fuel boat coming to deliver logs, Calor gas (propane) and kindling.

My husband John

This being the UK, weather has been very changeable, we’ve had thick ice on the canal, we’ve had lots of rain, and a few days ago we had lovely thick snow for the first time in a while!

I’ve been getting really into cooking; I’ve never been confident that I really know what I’m doing with spices but recently I’ve been following lots of cooking accounts and copying some recipes from Instagram which have turned out really nice, then I’ve used them as a springboard to make my own versions.

It’s really been nice to add some more variety, courtesy of Livity Plant Based Cuisine and Vegan Food and Places, both on Instagram.

Talking of which, for writing, cats, food and every day life, follow me on Instagram thisisrachelhill

For beautiful photographs of our travels follow my husband travelswithanthony

I’ll leave you with this quote from the film Down to Earth, which was recommended to me by my friend Karen:

‘How we live every day is a ceremony.’

Self portrait, Pushkar, India 2020

Thank you very much for reading

About the author

In 2018 in our forties and fifties my husband and I sold up, gave away most of our possessions, and went travelling for a year, mainly in India, and also to Thailand, Tokyo, Nepal, Cambodia and Vietnam. My personal/spiritual/travel memoir of the year is currently being edited a bit more before I resend it to agents. I wrote everything down and made it a bit too long! I live on a narrowboat in rural Northamptonshire, UK with my husband and two cats.

Life Update

Tags

editing, Jericho Writers, Living in the moment, Memoir, narrowboat life, Netflix, Russell Brand, simple life, The Salt Path, Upwork, Voluntary simplicity, writing, Zadie Smith

Today on the boat

We are three weeks in to a month long lockdown here in England, with rumours it might go on for longer, and that we may be given five days to socialise over Christmas which would need to be offset by twenty-five days of lockdown in January. I sympathise with anyone who has strong feelings about it. For me personally, I’m pretty easy going about it. We have planned to go to my mum’s for Christmas Day and then stay at my husband’s mum’s for a few days. However, even if restrictions are lifted over Christmas, I will say to my mum that if she prefers us not to come, and to spend Christmas with a less risky friend, rather than my husband and I who both work in care homes, that is fine. In that case we would offer to work an early shift at work to allow people with kids to have some of the day off. I don’t really mind about being locked down for January either.

That said, I have felt very restless, particularly at the beginning of this lockdown, and am now treating it as an opportunity, or a lesson, in practicing patience and being here now. In fact ever since we’ve come back from our travels I’ve been thinking about going somewhere else. As my husband said, maybe what we need to do is just accept where we are and learn to enjoy that, before anything else will become possible.

Living on the boat in Autumn is good for that; the bright fresh walks in the countryside, the cosy feeling of the wood burner, the store of logs and kindling and spare gas bottle just delivered by the fuel boat yesterday. We’ve maintained most of our healthy living programme from September. I made someone laugh at work the other day when I said that the worst thing I’d done since August was eat two packets of crisps (potato chips.) Cooking from scratch is another great way to appreciate the moment and feel grounded.

Writing

My book: I submitted my book to five agents, which I found using Jericho Writer’s agent match search facility. I had some interest from one, a rejection from another, and am still waiting to hear from the others. According to this great article by Zadie Smith, in an ideal world you’d put aside your book for a year, if not, three months, before editing. My plan is to resist any urge to do anything until 23^rd January or afterwards. That will be three months since I last looked at my book. Then I will edit again and get the word count down- it’s too long and that may be off putting, and after leaving it I will hopefully see where it can be cut and see things which need doing much more easily.

Upwork: I’ve begun a foray into writing for money. Upwork is very easy to get set up on, and scrolling through the constantly updating jobs is at least as fun as scrolling through Google news or Instagram. The variety is fun- one person wants articles about ferrets, from people with some knowledge of them. Unfortunately my experience is very limited, I once saw a man walking a ferret on a train, John used to talk about wanting one on his boat, and we both once saw a man in Ramsgate walking two ferrets on a lead.

My first job was ghostwriting/editing a young American man’s very exciting travel story. It was fun and I was able to do it well. I’m currently pitching for a few more. A lot of the jobs are very low paid/are suitable only for professional copywriters who can write a 500-600 article start to finish in half an hour, but there is a huge variety. It takes time to build a profile, get reviews and be able to pitch for the better paid jobs. And by pitch- I just send them a nice friendly message, although forums abound on putting snazzy proposals together. Clients range from companies churning out content, to individuals writing their memoirs. I recommend it!

Reading

The Salt Path by Raynor Winn, about homelessness and walking the South West Coast path. Here’s a link to a great article about her and the book.

Russell Brand Booky Wook 2 and Revolution from a charity shop, amusing and interesting.

Watching

Netflix: The Queen’s Gambit, Baby (Italian with subtitles, in my learning Italian phase) Plus loads of old films my husband has found on YouTube, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Dead on Arrival, Charade

Self portrait Pushkar 2020

About the author

In 2018 in our forties and fifties my husband and I sold up, gave away most of our possessions, and went travelling for a year, mainly in India, and also to Thailand, Tokyo, Nepal, Cambodia and Vietnam. My personal/spiritual/travel memoir of the year is completed and out with agents. I live on a narrowboat in rural Northamptonshire UK with my husband and two cats.

Thank you very much for reading

Follow me on Instagram thisisrachelhill

Rebalancing my chakras

Tags

chakra rebalancing, chakras, detoxing, editing, energy healing, healing, Indian matchmakers, spiritual healing, Vyasar Ganesan, writing

The Guru I followed for a few months a few years back told us that ‘all chakras have been removed,’ which I went along with, even though going over people’s chakras, including my own, was one of my own personal favourite ways of giving healing. After almost losing my mind for a few moments over her predicted zombie apocalypse (probably best not to ask) and my husband unsubscribing from the channel- I have since come to think, well, maybe I could go back to thinking about chakras now and again. I mean it’s not like anyone can really prove whether they exist or not and if I think they’re helpful then they are. Giving love to me or others by thinking about specific areas of the body in specific ways even if all in my imagination, what’s the harm?*

So I just had a rather wild weekend, and spent the following week limping along in a queasy state of ravenous gnawing hunger and not feeling at all like myself (zombie apocalypse anyone?) My husband was off too, and we binge watched Indian Matchmakers on Netflix- the only thing we felt able to watch. I got tearful seeing Indian cities and streets and hearing the Astrologer speak about Vyasar ‘He makes everyone laugh, even a crying person is laughing… He feels no shame even when sweeping the floor. He has a golden heart.’ Single ladies, I understand Vyasar is on Twitter.

Towards the end of the week, I restarted a bit of yoga, even though I felt sick bending over, and the day before my husband went back to work we went shopping, to the launderette and for a walk.

But it wasn’t until I was on my own this (Saturday) morning, for the first of three days in a row of time on my own to write, that I was able to bring my own unique understanding to my situation. During party times rules get a bit slack, and a cat sneaked onto the bed before my husband went to work. Then another one.

I’d been ‘going through my chakras’ and been alarmed to find nothing there at my solar plexus, like all my emotions had just been hollowed out. At my sacral chakra an orange shape flipped like the tail of a dying fish or a boat propeller clogged up with weeds. Too much emphasis on pleasure drives, maybe? Onwards #NoSextember! And as for my root chakra- the red seat of all security- I’d spent one afternoon in a frenzy of thinking of buying to let or even just buying and living- I even found a job there- falling in love with solidly built old dear little one bedroom stone cottages in Yorkshire. ‘For security!’ I said.

I am an overthinker, comes free with the imagination, and I’d been debating to myself even as I was doing it about the whole chakra thing, should I be doing it, do they exist, etc etc, when I remembered that at some point over the weekend I had done a healing session for the first time in ages. No boundaries, no protection, and not with a clear head. I focused on areas the person had mentioned, but otherwise announced them to have nothing wrong with them, ‘Everything seems to be whirling away beautifully!’ In popular imagination, chakras are often visualised like little coloured windmills, whirring away if they are healthy. Or vortexes of light, if that’s more your thing. *Ahh, maybe I just gave away all my energy, I thought. That explains a lot.

But maybe, as Alfie the cat gently batted my face so that I lifted up the duvet and let him into the bed, to lay stretched out all along my belly and chakras, all I need to do is cuddle a cat. Our cats don’t have toddlers pulling them about or anything, so they lead life largely on their own terms and remain as I see them perfectly balanced and enlightened in their own way. Therefore, they may come to me for warmth and find it no trouble to rebalance my energies at the same time. As they snuggle in to get warm and settle down for a nap, they may feel a slight whirring or sicky feeling coming off me as I am rebalanced by their calm presence, but they are so calm that it’s not enough to upset their equilibrium, or at least, it’s a fair trade.  And all I have to do is cuddle a cat and go back to sleep for a bit longer…

I did get back to editing yesterday- Friday, a sickly lacklustre session but a session nonetheless, and now today- Saturday begins three days of editing work before I go back to paid work on Tuesday. Maybe I’ll even send something off?

As well as finishing the book, the other thing is to get back to India asap. My aim is for us to go December-March, if the borders open to tourists then of course. I need 1. someone to take in the cats and look after them at their house or 2. someone to live on the boat and take care of the cats on there. Your chakras will be in tip top condition!

Join me if you like for a September of detox, healthy food and frequency raising! See earlier post

PS On checking the spelling of his name I came up with this lovely picture of Vyasar- cuddling a cat- in a beautiful bit of blogging synchronicity! Twitter, ladies, Twitter!

 

How to Write a Book Part 2

Tags

conditioning, editing, editor, escape the matrix, how to write, How to write a book, narrowboat life, Personal growth, Travel memoir, Work, writing

Photo of me from a couple of weeks ago
Since I last posted I have discovered bright colours! (Thank you to Julie for my beautiful birthday top!)

Turns out, editing is harder than I thought, total focus is required, hence my absence. Plus in March I started work, part time, at a lower level but back to Occupational Therapy. Stepping down, and into a new clinical area, albeit just up the road and with a lovely team, is actually harder than I thought. I’m even wondering about stepping up again into a senior role and back into a more-hardcore-yet-familiar clinical setting.

As far as the book goes, there’s only so much writing I can do without my hand, wrist, arm and shoulder hurting. So there’s that. One or two evenings after work I do an hour or so, then on my days off I do around two hours. John my husband works 3-4 days per week in a shift pattern, giving us every Friday together and every other weekend, and time alone on the boat for each of us.

Book update: I’m giving myself a long weekend off, which feels like coming up for air, between the last pass through and the next, which will be editorial advice, mainly cutting here and there and working on strengthening the endings of each chapter, and adding a little personal background as needed.

I’ve been helping a friend with some editing and as I had hoped, have discovered a talent for this. I am very gentle, supportive and responsive and I have a sharp critical eye I can access to help you. If you want help I am available for editing work, use the contact box and I’ll get straight back to you.

More big news: We are in the process of putting a website together to collate all the information and knowledge we have about the nature of reality, the conditioning we are all a victim of etc etc; an online community for exchanging ideas and asking questions about our own experiences… Watch this space, as they say!

The cats came back at the start of lockdown!

Follow me on Instagram thisisrachelhill (mainly writing stuff and photos of everyday boat life)

Thank you for visiting

Rachel xxx