by Janis Patterson

The cry ‘Hold, Enough!’ comes from a quote from Macbeth (or as stage people call it, The Scottish Play) which I can drag only as a paraphrase from my memory – “Lay on, MacDuff, and curst be he that first cries, “Hold, Enough!””

So why am I writing about The Scottish Play?

Because I have cried, ‘Hold, Enough.’

As writers we soon become accustomed to playing God. We can, as P. D . James so famously said, ‘kill with a glance and leave the body lying right there on the page.’ We can create towns, people, populations, even worlds to our own specifications. Want to change it? Toss in a hurricane or a plague, or just toss the whole thing and start over. The only rules in our writing are the ones we set for ourselves.

Sounds perfect, doesn’t it? In many ways it is. Unfortunately, though, sometimes such an arrogant attitude seeps into real life. We forget we can’t change the timeline, or change the cast of characters, or eradicate anything that annoys us. (Well, we can, but it can be illegal, to say nothing of quite messy.)

We write in a world of endless possibilities and power. We live in a world of concrete limitations and restrictions. No wonder writers are both frustrated and a little testy.

So what brings on this rant? Once again I have been brought up short by the constraints of reality. Time is a constant. Energy is entropic. We can’t have/do everything we want.

When I am presented with a project that excites me it doesn’t really matter what I have on my plate already. Of course I can squeeze it in. If I do X number of words a day it will be easy…

Well, not always. Maybe I am just getting older, or slower, or just choosier – or more disinterested – but I find myself getting more interested in luxuries like sleeping, cooking something that doesn’t have air fryer directions on the box, spending quality time with friends and family… The tipping point might have been when I could not make my hot tub exercise time and my poor arthritic joints went into rebellion, so I joined them and revolted.

I still make my word count… most days… but the cost is higher. More contracts equal more projects equal more demands on my time… and the bitter knowledge that the problem is all my fault. I took on the projects. I signed the contracts. It’s like being in front of the largest candy counter in the world – I’ll take two of those, and a half dozen of those, and a pound of those… all the while you know you should be eating sensibly. You want, but you know you can’t have. At least, not everything.

So I did something I have only done once before in my life. I cried “Hold, Enough!”

After a dispassionate analysis I bought back one of my contracts. Now I only have two projects, both partially completed and fairly short, due before the end of the year. And they truly will be easy.

Yesterday I wrote only half a day; I did make my word count easily enough, then ‘frittered’ (as I once would have called it) the afternoon away making a holiday Rumtoph. The kitchen is redolent with the scents of fruits and the enticing aroma of rum. It should be ready to use in about six weeks, when I will bake some holiday cakes. It is a heady prospect in more ways than one.

Life without writing is unthinkable, but life with writing has to be balanced.