writing

Now that I’ve failed to potty train the cat, I can go back to more important projects like continuing with my novel.

I’ve been quite busy with that which is partly why I’ve neglected the blog so much for the past few months – there seems to be only so many words I have per day, unless you count:

“Five, can you please get dressed and come down to breakfast”

“Eight, can you stop reading, get dressed, and come down to breakfast”

because I say those words maybe 30 times PER MORNING and then I shout them another 30 times before I physically pull books out of people’s hands, shove underwear into them,  and make unpleasant threats involving the withholding of  sugar, electronics, and time with the kitten.

I’m not sure how I became that person. She’s quite horrible and so are her children.

Once they’re at school I can become that interesting, quiet woman who has to boil the kettle several times before making a pot of tea because she gets distracted by other tasks, and then, finally, with a pot of lapsang and my delicious ginger kitten, I can settle in to a few hours of writing my book.*

I don’t know when I’ll finish this book. I am not a speedy writer but I am a steady one, and the plot’s rather complicated, plus there’s a pictorial aspect to it I haven’t quite worked out yet, BUT. I will get there. I’m probably a third of the way through?

Sometimes when I tell people I’m writing a book they give me a funny  look, like I’ve told them I’m building a spaceship out of cardboard boxes and I’m planning on flying to the moon next week. Then they ask me what I ‘really’ do. Or who my publisher is. When I say I don’t have one yet, not looking right now because I’m not ready, and besides that isn’t really the point for me, the look often turns to pity (eg be nice to poor deluded lady, it’s either that, basket weaving or intense therapy for her to keep her off the streets, btw don’t let her have a gun).

I don’t struggle with this as much as I might have done in earlier years. I remember some folks being the same back when I was a young musician, singing in crappy wine bars, sequencing synths on my 1 meg Atari (ha!) and sending out (showing my age) demo tapes which nobody listened to or listened to, laughed, and threw in the bin. Then, when I finally got a record deal and some commercial success, suddenly I was a ‘real’ musician. As if during the struggling pot noodle years I was only pretending.

Of course it’s possible that this is all in my head – so much stuff is (I may need a larger drive to hold all the drivel thats accumulated over the years), but even if it is, I still have to live with it, manage it, and get it out the way so I can actually tell the story I’m trying to write. And it needs to be told.

I hope that whomever is left reading my little blog (all 4 of you?) will bear with me – I’m going to keep trying to post, even if it’s just about little things, and one day, there will be something more substantial, and more interesting to read.

* Unfortunately I also spend quite a bit of time reading the news, answering email and looking at Facebook, then feeling guilty about it and having to make another pot of tea because the first one went cold before I remembered to pour a cup.

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