One small moment of enlightenment.................

It has dawned on me that I lose interest in writing my novels because they are boring.

They are boring because they are history tomes with a few fictional characters thrown in; the history takes centre stage and the characters and minor incidents are incidental.

I realised this because I find writing my short stories exciting.....and that's because I'm making them up as I go along and they have only a tenuous link with reality.

Soooooo I have one Hell of a lot of re-imagining to do. I'm not depressed by this I feel liberated because I've given myself permission to invent stuff.

Now, let's see, when and where did I last see my  imagination? I might have left it on a bookshelf somewhere or possibly in my trinkets box,.
 Gotta go and hunt it down.

Writing and Volcanoes

It's proving hard to tear myself away from my pc and write short stories; as for the novel, it languishes.
I'm completely absorbed by Bardarbunga and check web-cams and earthquake data a dozen times a day. It would disrupt any routine but when you're trying to get a story straight in your head and onto the page it becomes a real bugbear.
I'm not sorry to be so taken up by something extraneous. I have been drifting along on the foamy billows for too long. I am still getting short stories done but whether they're readable is another matter.

I should be getting the garden winterised too!

I confess to an addiction

Over on 'Whatever Comes' there's another dazzlingly brilliant short story.

The novel is proceeding at a snail's pace, but you can't have everything, especially when I've been glued to webcams watching Bardarbunga.

 There are times when I love technology and this is one of them. I'm getting an almost continuous stream of data on earthquakes, displays of lava flows and conversations with vulcanologists; short of actually being there this is marvellous. I'm in Heaven!

Paddling furiously

I look nothing like a swan either literally or metaphorically, but I feel akin to one in the amount of effort it takes me to stay on top of Life.

I become aware that things need 'Doing' i.e. they require some active involvement on my part, this is often triggered by the realisation that I need to prod somebody who promised to do something for me and hasn't, but I'm always reluctant to do that;  so I think of all the things that I promised to do and haven't completed or possibly started. There generally aren't too many items on this list, so once they're ticked off I look for other things to tackle............

Now there is the issue. I look for things to keep my hands busy because my mind is empty.It's full of trivia and fretting but empty of ideas. I cannot write or so I tell myself so I must be useful instead. I must do important things in the way of living comfortably. It's all crap because I'm only thinking of cupboard tidying or weeding the garden or  cleaning the shower all of which I can happily ignore for a month of Sundays.

All this busy-ness is a smoke screen for the real problem that's dogged me this Summer.
I have not been writing much or indeed anything, hence I've been scurrying about for weeks, stacking up lesser tasks and working through them so that I cannot be held culpable for the failure to write!


So I've said it now. I've confessed. I need to write to regain some self respect and to get away from the bloody housework. I shall proceed to the labour of  artistic creation forthwith !!!

Not wanted on voyage

My youngest grandchild starts college soon. It sank in today that she and the others are all growing into functioning adults and I'm not sure if I'll fill any viable role in their lives from here on. It is a version, I guess, of Empty Nest syndrome and I don't like it.

I've always lived on a creed that somebody needs me and that need justifies my existence; realising that I'm not essential to anybody else's well-being is hard to accept.
This redundancy probably crops up in any life that's lived long enough, it's another thing nobody warns you about on that long list of ''All the Things I wish I'd known about Old Age before I got OLD, but didn't.''
I called this post 'Not wanted on voyage' because  while those trunks lay in the hold on the long journey they know they'll be opened again in a new place, so....I still have a ray of hope that if Great-Grandchildren appear somebody will phone and say 'We need you. Can you come over?'

Robin Williams

Feeling extremely sad at the news. At first I thought he'd maybe had a heart attack and I was pleased for him that he'd been taken suddenly because somehow that seems appropriate when you're aware that somebody is having a tough time.
Then I read that he'd apparently taken his own life and the sadness hit me. There are many people who feel desperate yet live with that and with all the reasons why they feel bad; I'm so sad that he no longer wanted to do that.
 His wry irony should have kept him going, shouldn't it?  But such skills don't help the comic do they? He seemed to have an inexhaustible well of humour  and I feel somehow that should have helped him on dark days, as his  humour helped a lot of us.

I'm so sorry you couldn't stay Mr Williams.........

Later... so many people mourning him. He gave out a lot of love but was given plenty too and it didn't help.
 Did he feel like a perpetual Mork, always alien, laughable as well as humourous? I fear that he did  and that's dreadful.

I take pen in hand...............

I started writing again this morning after more than a month.
I don't know why everything stopped, it just did. It was partly due to the heat, which sapped all my energy and interest and partly it was a lack of fun ideas.
I have some ideas to run with now. I won't say they're original, but they should get some work out of me; at any rate I wrote 600 words this morning and they're not total drivel.