Monday 22 August 2011

One day I'll write the first line

I had a lousy night's sleep so at around 2.30 am I started wondering if I could perhaps turn some of the more dramatic and horrible things that have happened to me into a book. I couldn't quite decide whether it would be better to novelise it or to tell it straight, and in the end I plumped for the memoir style. Not my whole life but just a slice.

I decided to devote the entire day to writing. I finished breakfast and had the first sentence written in my mind and was heading for the computer when Mr G informed me that his friend with the five
small boys was on her way round with their soaking wet tent, to peg it out and dry it in the garden. I had a loud grumble of 'it's not fair, I was about to start some creative writing for the first time in months,' and was told off and reminded harshly that it's his house, his friends and they'll come round whenever he wants and if I want to work, I can go and rent an office somewhere.

The morning passed in a whirl of scooping up babies as they were about to eat Flad's food, plucking the poker from a toddler's hands, telling off the three-year-old for hitting the baby on the head... while Mr G and the boys' mum put the smelly tent up in the garden. They'd returned from a holiday in the New Forest on Thursday and been caught in a thunderstorm as they were packing up and the soggy tent had been mouldering in the boot ever since.

They left at about midday. I had some lunch, went to buy some salad and when I came back, there was another visitor, followed soon after by yet another. The whole day went, the first sentence has vanished, the entire urge to write has gone. It is SO frustrating! Oh, for an office at the bottom of the garden... but I'm sure babies, foxes, Flad, Uncle Tom Cobbley and all would still come and find me.

1 comment:

Perovskia said...

Get.
Your.
Own.
HOUSE!

:)

(I know this is in 'the plans' but I grok your frustration.)