Workless

I am having a crisis of confidence.

I have spent much of the day editing Symon the Black, and the rest of the day wandering around absently, not doing things and thinking about it.

When it was done I sent it to Lucy, who reads fantasy twaddle, and asked for her opinion.

She rang back a couple of hours later, and I asked her if it was predictable. She explained that since she had been under the impression that the main protagonist was an actual unicorn, it had all been a bit surprising.

I assured her that neither Symon the Black nor any of his associates were unicorns, and she said that there was a lot that could be changed and that she would send me a list.

I am in despair.

I am so much in despair that I have begun to think I might junk it and write something else, and my mind has been wandering along the track of a story about a poor boy called Alan Dean, whose mother works in the local laundrette, and who finds an interesting old lamp in the branch of the local Emmaus managed by his horrid stepfather.

I might write it anyway, really somebody should.

It is long after seven o’clock, and I ought to be at work, but I am not, because Mark has not yet come home and I have no taxi.

Mine, as you know, is sitting in the alley without a fuel pump sensor. Mark is going to fix it when he gets home and I will go to work in his car whilst he does it.

The problem is that he has not come home.

At the very last minute, he had to go off to Walney Island to fix some problematic radios before the weekend, and he has just called to say that he is leaving there now. He has got to go back to Ted’s house first, and he is going to be ages.

I might get chance to write about Alan Dean at this rate, he has not even called to tell me that he has made it as far as Ted’s house yet.

I am not exactly sorry that he is late. I don’t much mind not driving a taxi, it is the not having any cash bit that I don’t like.

An email came in as I wrote those words, from a fellow student. I had dispatched the story and asked for criticism, and she thought it was perfectly fine, which was something of a relief. I have kept the email on the screen behind this page, and I keep flicking back to it for some reassurance.

I might like to write Alan Dean anyway. I am really not much good at writing fantasy, it really is twaddle. It is always about some sort of Chosen One, which is only really relatable if you are the sort of person who has experienced getting picked out of a police line up. I do not understand why people read it. Obviously I like the Lord of the Rings, because it was the one all the rest have copied, and I like A Game of Thrones, because you keep thinking you have worked out who is the Chosen One, and then he gets murdered, but I think the current fashion for stories about teenage vampires eating their girlfriends is monumentally dull.

Symon the Black might be dull for all I know.

In other news, there is no other news. I have hung up the washing and walked over the fells. This was a happy occasion, because the sun was shining, the trees budding, and the air filled with birdsong. There are pussy-willows and snowdrops and catkins, and Mark said he saw the first lambs yesterday.

The birds are starting to fall in love with one another, and one or two slutty ones have got right down to business already and are now flapping about with their beaks stuffed with twigs.

Dog haircuts coming up soon.

I am going to go and contemplate second-hand light fittings.