Back in the saddle!

Picking up my notebook and writing my 1000 words was really hard this morning. I avoided and procastinated, until I couldn't put it off any longer.

I wrote rubbish, no doubt of that, but the engine is clearing and hopefully good things will come, eventually.

The thought of how hard it is going to be is so much worse than the reality of just sitting down and getting on with it. But I think that ploughing on with it, even when you would far rather be doing something else, is what it takes to get a novel written, even a novel of dubious literary merit, such as mine.

Well, he can fly a sleigh, can't he....?!

This blog occasionally has the tendency to slip into becoming a record of funny things my kids say. Here's a cracker:

5 Year old Daughter has a tendency to embark on deep and meaningful conversations over breakfast when The Consultant and I are just struggling to wakefulness with the aid of caffeine. The other day she started quizzing us about gravity. I just looked the other way in a 'that's not my area' kind of fashion, so she zoned in on her dad.

First of all, she tells him what she knows about gravity; that everything has it and that it is what holds everything down. Then she pipes up,

'But what exactly is gravity?'

The Consultant gives what I think is a very coherent answer for that time in the morning,

'Well, no-one really knows. There are a group of scientists in Switzerland who are doing experiments to see if they can find out the answer.'

She ponders this for a moment. Then,

'But why don't they just ask Father Christmas?'

Recovering...

I'm feeling a bit better today. The antibiotics have clearly started working. However, I feel like I haven't slept for a week, even though that's all I've been doing for most of it. I've had the stuffing knocked out of me, as my mother used to say.

Anyway, on the mend now and will just have to write this week up to experience. It has certainly reminded me what having a fever is like. Could come in handy sometime.

Although I haven't done much writing on the long project this week, I have still written my morning pages, and on here, so it hasn't been an entirely barren writing week. I do still have this sense of not wanting to let the engine stall for fear of it not starting again. I'm already a bit anxious about the thought of going back to my long project notebook on Monday. But I do want to get that word count on this first draft up a bit, so will be there bright and early to knuckle down to it.

I think I'm concerned because I've been writing this long project almost every day and the story has been flowing and now I have stopped for nearly a week, I'm worried about picking up the threads again. This is when you start wishing you had planned a bit and made notes...

But this is an experiment just for me, to see how I get on with producing something more spontaneously than usual. So we shall see how the week's interruption affects it all. More next week, undoubtedly...

Take up thy bed and dance...

Music has the power to heal the sick. Honest, it really does.

Go to Youtube and listen to this, and I defy you not to be uplifted! At the very least you should be dancing around your laptop. If you ever get a chance to see these guys play live, GO! They are just brilliant. Totally and utterly life-affirming.

I feel better already...

Urrggghh

So my week isn't going so well. After my resolution to keep on keeping on, I have been struck down by tonsillitis. I haven't had this since I was a student and just goes to show that I have perhaps been a little under stress in the last few weeks. I've got some stuff I'm worried about and I have been going over and over it in my mind, to the extent to which I'm even boring myself, so I won't subject you to it here.

I feel horrible, hence I'm up blogging at 3am. My body clock is all over the place as I have spent the last day and night sleeping and waking and sweating and shivering. My throat feels like it's full of slimy razor blades, and my head is hurting like you would not believe. I have maxed out on the number of paracetemol and ibuprofen tablets I can take in one day, so here I am, trying to take my mind off it all. I've started on some penicillin so I'm just hoping and praying that it will start working soon and make me feel better.

I guess sometimes we just have to stop. We don't get a choice in the matter. And maybe it's for the best. Maybe I just need to rest and get myself well and concentrate on the basics. And I could probably find the good in it if I really had to... But it is just so damned inconvenient when your life slides to a standstill and you stumble out of the wreckage completely askew.

Is it time to try for some sleep again? Would probably be a good idea. At least I might stand a chance of making it through tomorrow. Goodnight!

That's life.

You have all these commitments, plans and good intentions. On a normal week you can just about squeeze in under the wire, having contorted yourself physically and mentally, to manage all the tasks you have set yourself for that allotted time. It's like a very complex juggling routine. Like the ones where the man in the leotard stands on a barrel and rolls it at the same time as juggling flaming torches and holding a bunch of flowers in his teeth.

The problem is that if one single element goes wrong, then the whole thing goes spectacularly, badly, disastrously wrong, and no-one wants to see a man in a leotard lying spread-eagled across a barrel with a flaming torch stuck in a sensitive place. (I think I've taken this man in a leotard metaphor as far as I can without it threatening to become the most interesting thing about this post...)

So, last week I was ill thanks to the generosity of my best friend and her cold virus, and this week Small Son is streaming with cold and looking a bit pitiful. He is presently ensconced in the spare room watching Fireman Sam DVDs. So what happens? All the writing and all the other stuff planned while everyone is out of the house is seriously threatened. What can you do? Well, just your best really. I have started to realise that despite my best efforts, the wheels will just come off sometimes and there's not a lot I can do about it. So I will perhaps pick up my notebook and get a few minutes in which to scribble things down. I can even try for my 1000 words, but in all likelihood, it ain't going to be happening.

I could get all antsy about it. That is my usual technique - to crash about in a horrible mood if I don't get time to myself. But that takes a lot of energy. And I'm a bit over unnecessary effort. So I shall just do my best, and keep on keeping on.

Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.

J.D. Salinger died today.

Catcher in the Rye is one of the books that made me want to be a writer. If ever a book had 'voice' this is IT! Holden Caulfield has to be one of the most convincing teenagers ever created.
Check this out for an opening -

'If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.'

I'll see your Dickens, and I'll raise you...

You just know it's going to be good from that first sentence.

So thanks, J.D., and goodnight. Perhaps Holden could end for me -

'I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in the goddam cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on a Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you're dead? Nobody.'

Quite.