Unfolding Moments

Life, one moment at a time

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  • Writer Writing

    Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

    I used to write. As in, write books.

    Used to.

    The internal fire to set words, and lots of them, on a page left me in 2020. Yes, That Year. The pandemic gave me lots of questions and no answers. Do I include the pandemic in the story? If so, how do you write about a pandemic when you don’t know how it’s going to go? Will it end soon? Will it kill millions worldwide? And how about the way restrictions are experienced differently around the world or even just where I live? And if it’s over with quickly, how will the story wear in the long term? Not to mention the idea of NOT including it.

    With the anxiety of the time, it was too much to think about. So, I stopped. Not completely, but the drive to produce words slipped away. I have tried to start new stories but never progressed them very far. I have ideas for stories, but they haven’t materialised on the page. Yet.

    Never say never, right? There has always been a plan to write again. This blog is meant as a launching pad, first to get the writing happening and then for it to inspire new projects. At the moment it’s a challenge to do post blogs, let alone anything else. I guess this is where the work starts.

    Writing a novel is usually not a case of just sitting down and letting the words out. For me, anyway. It has often started that way and then I get to a point where I must do a bit of planning or forward thinking. In the past I have written myself into a corner and had to work to keep the story going. Right now, I have an inkling of a story in my head and that is as far as it’s gone.

    All I have to do is the work.

    I want writing to be fun, too. Short form items—stories and blog posts—is the way I will start. Then I will see. After all, I’ve written ten books and countless short stories and blog posts in the past. I can do it again.

    But only when I’m ready.

    By Alfie

  • Garden Resurrection

    Unmown grass in filtered sunlight
    Photo by Daniel Chicchon on Unsplash


    I didn’t water my garden last summer. A deliberate choice. The plants had to rely on nature.

    Why? To see which plants would survive so I could focus on a drought-proof garden. That was the official reason I trotted out.

    In reality, it was more like I couldn’t be bothered.

    The end of the year is a busy one for everybody and for me the combination of work pressures and visiting family left me drained. And disinclined to do anything in the garden, even water it.

    Of course, you know what happened. Some plants lived, some plants died, and the weeds took over.

    Now it is spring again and this year I don’t want the weeds to dominate. To avoid the end of year madness causing the garden to be neglected again, I’ve formed a plan. I am going to outsource the biggest garden chore so I can focus on the rest.

    The chore? Mowing the grass. Okay, mowing the grass and the weeds that make up our ‘lawn’.

    If I have a well-manicured green patch of ‘lawn’, I will be inspired to get the garden beds into some sort of order. I mean, it would be pointless paying someone to make a part of my garden nice and then leave the rest looking…well…neglected (which it is). There is an element of crossed fingers here, that I will get out in the garden and make it respectable. I have done it before, so I can do it again.

    All I have to do is start.

    We have family visiting again soon. Maybe this time I can show them a nice garden.

    By Alfie