I have had the most tiresome day.
I have, as you know, been gathering my thoughts into a writerly-order, with the intention of producing something which would be both exciting to write and so entertainingly readable that people might actually pay for the privilege.
This has cost me a whole week of scowling and thoughtful tramping up the hillside, patiently followed by the dogs. They have been ignored, and hence have amused themselves by splashing in and out of muddy streams and rolling in forbidden badger poo, and barking at every other dog who has strolled past.
There were not very many of these because of January not being much of a tourist season.
I am pleased to tell you that today’s walk was very much warmer, by the way, and when we got to the top of the second hill, there was even sunshine. I think that this might have been because we had emerged above the mists, but it was lovely all the same, and I turned up my face to catch as much of it as I could. I think that we might be short of Vitamin D at the moment. It is months since we have exposed any skin to the outside world apart from the absolutely necessary bits. I keep seeing people wearing face masks whilst walking along the street, and have to stop myself from rushing up to them and warning them about the dangers of rickets.
I know that we are all vaccinated against rickets these days, but everybody is vaccinated against bat flu as well, and that does not seem to stop people from being anxiously precautionary.
Anyway, I walked and thought and listened to the birds and grumbled about my aching hips, and came back home ready to start writing things.
I was very excited about this.
The plot was shaped in my head, the ideas formed just enough to be full of exciting potential. I made a cup of tea and dashed upstairs to my computer, and absolutely none of it would come out.
At first I thought of sentences and wrote them, then I wrote a few more and re-read the first ones, at which point I could see that they were the most awful rubbish.
I scrubbed the lot and started again.
Then I saved that beginning and started another one.
Then I went on Wikipedia and investigated some things and started again.
Then I made some notes, and deleted everything I had written so far.
It was dreadful, real shocking rubbish. It was words coming out the way Boris Johnson talks, the literary equivalent of Ah, Erm, Well, You see, with some meaningless twaddle in between.
I gave up and went downstairs to put a chicken to marinate in some barbecue sauce. You make this with tomato puree and vinegar, by the way, with plenty of garlic and sugar and smoked paprika, you do not need to pay £2.48 for a plastic bottle of the stuff. I should have put it to marinate yesterday, but it was still frozen then, because I had not been concentrating.
I went back to the computer and tried again, with the same result. Then I rang Lucy, because it is her day off and I have not talked to her for ages. She is coming to see us in a couple of weeks and I had got to book her car in for an MOT. I have never known a family with so many MOT appointments, if I were the MOT garage I would be a jolly lot politer than they are.
After that I lit some candles. I remember one of my creative writing class telling us that she had done this for inspiration, but it had not worked.
It did not work for me either.
Then at half past five, just at the very moment when I had got to start getting Mark’s dinner cooked, the dam burst.
Words flowed from my computer keyboard like the water into the cupboard when you have just taken the sink trap off and then automatically just tipped the bucket back into the sink.
I have not dared to re-read it.
I hope it is not more twaddle.
I will look again in the morning.
