Getting off my ass to finally do something about this "book" of mine, has been somewhat challenging. I wouldn't even call it challenging in fact, because that would indicate that is a degree of difficulty involved - that's not it at all. It's pure procrastination and the massive amount of denial; maybe fear of actually getting it done?
My brother and sister in law came and stayed recently in Singapore and Guy was banging on about his addiction to Twittering and this constant need to tweet and how his Twitterness had sparked so much traffic to his other business websites. Telling me stories of how particular blogs had transformed his business and their own for that matter. We had a rich discussion about the new world and how personal referencing on the web had become the new critic of choice. More people every around the globe had a voice that people were interested to hear, search for or follow. I know I'm slow on the uptake some times, but... I came up with the idea to reframe my writing a book to writing and creating my own blog.
The idea of actually publishing my writing was titillating; but equally the thought of "people" reading what I had to say, and making judgments on my writing created the beeping sound in my head of a semi trailer backing out in reverse; good god could I do this - I felt like if I had a penis it would have shriveled up right at the moment, what's the opposite for loosing your womanhood?? Crickey, my writing seemed immature and not worthy (actually probably why it's still locked away in a box in the third room) Fleur Glover's observations on life, who would want to read that and who was I to publish these observations? So what then transpired was the good old paralysis of fear set in again and the idea was just shelved back into low rotation mode. Safe really, a lot of time was invested in that place, so it was a fairly easy place for me to revert back to.
I write about human observation, about human thought and experience, about why people do the things they do around and with me and how the dynamics of how we all behave in the world bring us to places or experiences that have impact on who we are and how we operate, how we respond, or don't in some cases, or how we learn from the colours that we encounter. The big beautiful and strange human existence, a world of patterns and habitual behaviour that if you watch closely enough, you can see it coming just before it hits.
All of a sudden these thousand of hours I've spent scribing these lines, note book after note book, Dictaphone after Dictaphone all became a judgment of the big bad wide world's non acceptance. My writing was doomed to staying where it was, in boxes in my junk room, on files in my laptop for preparation for my book and in the inboxes of men that I had tried to fix. If you've dated me there is no doubt you've received a very detailed letter of some description, with all sorts of wonderful words of advice, anecdotes and analogies on how inspired we can be from stories such as Joe Simpson climbing down K2 on his hands and knees crawling in the latrine only to find he found his salvation in a pile of shit. Yes, you will know the ones.
Guy insisted that the first thing I needed to do was just get over it. Get my name out there and build my reputation as a writer. And not give a toss about what people thought, popularity or if my boss read my insights into his paranoid activities etc. I needed to break the ice and just get on with it. Did I want this or not?
I procrastinated a little more,
went out for a few more dinners with my pad to write - more and more pages of observations and drawing parallels to what had happened to me that day - always reverting back to how some experience is a reflection of the conscious exposing or illustrating a image or learning in some form for you... no, me actually, I just needed to see it. "See it", I've never had some many signs to write and get on with my path, my journey and making this dream no longer a girlish fantasy; signs to remind me this was a burning desire. I couldn't really ignore them any more. So I decided to be open to the idea and start introducing it into dialogue - "I'm going to write a blog". Quietly at first. Just me and the mirror. Next, dropping it in random conversations and then actually registering a blog page on line. That produced a fair amount of anxiety actually, there was the initial, sh*t, sh*te, f**k, holy hell, I've actually got to do this now... and then what can only describe as "not for public consumption" hysteria, whaling a Julia Roberts "whooah whooah whooah" with flying crazy arm movements and then some form of (bad) cheer-leading swinging of my arms in front of me in circular motion chanting "go girl, go girl, go Glover, go Glover, go Glover".. which then turned into a replica of "Nice one bruffa, I said nice one bruffa, (getting Louder) i SAID NICE ONE GLOVER" (that beautiful scene from Human Traffic). You get the picture. Then I went and wrote on my Mac for the night and didn't publish the page.
Publishing on a blog, a dynamic blog just seemed so threatening and self-indulgent. But again, I came back to the idea of why have I then wasted so many hours of my life writing with a dream to be published and not have the balls to go through with it? I should say gumption, far more feminine. Apologies.
The Other Side inspiration came from a business plan meeting I had with my dear friend Pete - the name was born from working on another project. I told Pete of my paralysis and desire to start a blog and he encouraged me to use the same name to further develop my brand as Fleur Glover. He helped me give form to the idea of the writing style. To continue to write about observations, but from the Other Side or perspective. I liked it, I had a concept. I had some more colour to my idea.
Then this Saturday evening, the 28th November; a complete random chance encounter at a bar in Singapore, I met a very charismatic man that stole my attention. Actually, there was really no theft going on, I was a completely willing participant in that episode. Nevertheless, this man is a writer, a published writer of two books with a third in the making. He talked about how he is struggling to finish his third, stuck in some form of writer’s paralysis. Which instantly grabbed my attention even more. He talked about how he's spent 20 years as a journalist in war torn countries, witnessing more scenes of chaos and conflict across three continents; band from his motherland Zimbabwe because Mugabe hated him and feared by the Ethiopians as they suspected him a traitor. He was, rather is, controversial, which also struck a massive chord with me. He was the type of guy that would eat challenges for breakfast! The larger the obstacle, the brighter the fire with this one. Probably why he was in love with my Barbara Streisand nose - no, not my eyes, or my smile, he loved my snoz! Go figure, that's a first.
His first book was about 9/11 and his second about the war in Pakistan. (I have not read either, but having a good look on google to have a view of the themes). When he told me all of these achievements he was surprised my reaction was so mild. He jokingly said, "now you are supposed to fawn" I actually don't know what that meant, but I took it to mean, I should be more impressed. (I am also rather deaf; let's not forget that, so he could have said any number of things!). Regardless, I was impressed; I was but more fixated on how he was struggling with his third book and why and what was his process of writing it?
As always I drew it back to the emotional intent of my learning and wanted to understand what inspired him to write a novel of this nature. I didn't get far, “to be continued” I suspect. There was flirting to be done here, time to focus! We had a brilliant show that night - lots of animation, the lion and lioness in full flight. The other side of this all of this wildly striking and impressive man was a heart felt bird of song - he beautifully sang me an African tribal click song - tick! tick! tick! I love the other side of the show. (what books at this point!)
He knew he wanted to be a writer for as along as he could remember. I too always wanted to write; I'll never forget finishing the Camino and being with Amber in a bar in San Sebastian telling some random that I was going to be writer, a writer of this great tale called the "Pamp-A-lona Project" - it was our story of this life changing journey we were all brought to touch and feel together; and it was an incredible love story, it was my love story. (file still sitting on my desk top). It sounded like such a dream, like such a hill to climb, like a fantasy that would become a reality to the lucky. Complete and utter BS really. Just some more paralysis to shake off.
A wise woman told me recently "if you have a dream and you want to do something.... just do it, begin it anyway. Don't worry if it doesn't have complete form, just start it in some way.
She went on to say, "Boldness has genius and a little bit of power to it!"
I like that allot. Nevertheless - The African's accomplishments of two books and third in the womb did have an impact and I should indeed express that. Here I am. I'm a wildly passionate woman with a lot to say and a dream to pursue. I'm like a magnet to book stores and have an obsession with buying books; with a long term heart felt goal to one day have one of my books published and standing on these shelves that I admire.
Here we go. My challenge is this: I'm going to use this blog to earn my stripes to achieve the goal of being published.
I'm going to write about The Other side of my observations, experiences and views. The other side of my childhood, the other side of my sex life, the other side of my parents my family, the other side of my lovers, the other side of my friendships and encounters, the other side to mine and other peoples colours. I think it will evolve naturally.
Rip the band-aid off Glover and get on with it.
There is no doubt I'm a creator not a follower, but I would welcome you to follow this journey; share views, comment, present encounters to discuss and let's see what form this will take. The is always The other side, right?!
Here’s to boldness and power!
Fleur
***And finally .....To my muse - thank you.
Please forgive my typos and poor editing, this is day one, and promise to be sharp next time.
I'm listening to the Sound Track of "Out of Africa" as I write this.
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