Here shitty shitty (writer)!

As I’ve ranted about ad infinitum, I haven’t written or read anything in a hell of a long time!

But, recently on holiday I took a book¹ with me. Partly the habit of having a good book with you at all times, and partly hopeful that divine intervention would hit and I could blast through the novel in my down time. When I use the word ‘hopeful’ here, I don’t mean the usual optimistic “oh, It’d sure be nice if I got around to this and it all worked out!” I mean the scraping the bottom of the barrel; I thought my last chance was fifteen chances ago; ignore all the howling head voices screaming no type of hope. The pitiful voice at the bottom of Pandora’s box mewling that if you just trust the thing that has perpetually screwed you over oneeee more time – it’ll work out this time, I prommmmise!

I packed it anyway.

Though I didn’t finish the story I did manage a modest 200+ pages. I’m sure some of you are scoffing at a mere twenty-nine or so pages a day, but for me? For my little goblin brain…whoo-wee! It was like travelling back in time, relinquishing all of the bullshit of the past few years and regressing back into a younger body (still with the creaking knees and round stomach, but they were out of peripheral vision for now) as I managed, for the first time in a long time, to get lost in a good book. Cathartic to say the least.

So with some progress finally made on the ‘reading’ part of the equation, I thought I’d try my hand at the other half – writing! This blog post barely scratches the surface, or the itch, but it’s a start. And a start is more than I’ve had in a while. Well, to be fair I’ve had plenty of starts, but they never have the oomph to keep me going. They stress and strain and scrape away a little bit of my “should I try again” attitude each time, making every attempt harder and harder.

So part of the reason for this post is to bounce my fingers across the keyboard; spew forth some nonsense without thinking about it too much. Minimal editing, maximum effort. The other part is accountability – I’m hoping this wee attempt is the blip that shakes the water glass and lets the writing community know I might be coming back. Makes them take a biscuit of their pocket, and say pspsps, and try and lure me into their authorial garde…where the fuck is this metaphor going?!

You can tell its been awhile since I’ve written…sheesh!

But look at me now! Already back to abusing ellipses and exclamation points.

1. Toady by Mark Morris ↩︎