I know that true writers - obviously not me - should be able to write at any time of day. I can't do this and I have tried.  For me the best time is between 9am and 2pm.  After that and my brain slows down so much that I am only capable of slumping, drinking coffee, reading The Sun (because it's easy to power through whatever the politics, I don't care.  I can make my own mind up).

So obviously, in the last ten years, I haven't written ten novels.  I've written two completely, one partly, one just the first three chapters and the most recent, only in my head - and I'm already getting bored with it.

I need to go to an office everyday to write.  Not my shed as isolation causes all manner of grief.  Just two hours a day and then two hours in the pub (my own pub, but not behind the bar as I am incompetent and scared of the sea of expectant faces), someone else's pub with a couple of girlfriends would do just fine.  After that a little lie down and then a walk with the dogs. Perfect - oh and a day a month shopping for one item of clothing.  Partly that's all I can afford and partly it's good discipline.

How do you do it all you  writerly, arty people?

There's firsts for everything in life - first kiss, first baby, first bereavement, first fight...first fight? Me?

It started on Sunday evening.  I'd gone to my local where a band was playing. The music was so loud, your ears fizzed and right in front of the speaker danced a man and his dog.  The little terrier's dance was one of pain.  His ears lay flat against his head and he kept jumping up at the owner,  a small, thin man so drunk his eyes looked like those of a corpse. 

Every knows (don't they?) how a dog's ears are up to 10,000 times more sensitive than a human's so the pain that small dog was going through can only be imagined.

The owner and I exchanged words.  He was angry with me and I with him.  But It wasn't him that I fought. A woman who I'd been friends with came up to me and demanded to know why I'd unfriended her.  I walked away into the night but before I'd reached my house, this person, her husband and a pack of her mates surrounded me and my partner.  It was frightening and annoying at the same time.  I'm upset just remembering it so I will write about the fight tomorrow...

They say trauma bonds people together; a rail crash, being held hostage, surviving a natural disaster…

That June, the hot one of 2015, the six of us, women of different ages, class and creed slumped or stretched out on huge sofas in the L- shaped living and dining room.  It wasn’t yet dark but we’d closed the curtains – just to be safe, just to be sure. 

Of course all the windows were closed and locked.  Outside the refuge, our cars lay like sleeping monsters under dark covers. The house was set back off the road, discreetly hidden behind tall trees and hedges but even so, number plates must not be glimpsed.

Somehow the soft roe scent of the estuary crept in and the calls of men and women, who had their freedom, rose up into the heady night to compete with the soulful songs of owls and foxes crying for a mate.

I think that was the night we watched Sleeping with the Enemy. I didn’t see the ending because the staff confiscated the next day the video in case it re-traumatized us.

In her usual corner of the brown faux suede leather, Sonia curled up in her pajamas next to her make up bag, wiping off the mascara framing her large green eyes as she giggled at messages on her mobile, a mug of tea balanced dangerously on her knee.  This was her nightly ritual, except that the tea wasn’t tea, it was wine and this was a dry house. Eviction was too high a price for the rest of us.

What did bond us together?  Fear, anxiety and self esteem so low it grated on the floor and danger…I’d read that two women a week get killed by their abusive partners.  Domestic Violence so bad that we had to be hidden far away from all friends and family for many months.  Some of us knew our chances of being murdered were very high. 

I was one of those, but none of the women that night knew how long it might be before the Grim Reaper, aka the men who loved us to death – the irony of it not lost on us – found us.  And the punishment for leaving them could be our own deaths. Or worse, our children’s.

 DEADLINE!!!

Are you always wishing for time to write?
Having found some of these precious minutes/hours to write. Do you find, you just can't?
I do. I go on Facebook, check emails - again, make another cup of coffee, start new groups, pages and think up sales campaigns for a book that I have yet to complete.

The only time this didn't happen was when I had a deadline for a non-fiction book, 'How to Start and Run a Petsitting Business.' I'd promised the publishers, I would have it ready in six months. I did nothing for four and then worked 24/7 to complete. That was in 2008 and it's still selling well.

So that's it - a deadline.  A timetable within that deadline.

This is mine:  If I don't complete a near publishable first draft of my thriller by Christmas day, I give £100 to the Legion.  If I do complete it and it sells, I will give 10% of my sales to the Legion.
--> How about you guys. how do you motivate yourselves?

Life after Depression, Domestic Violence and losing the ability to create pictures from words.

I think I may be back.

It's been nearly six years since a nervous breakdown stole every day from me since my last post here.

I've been to the edge and felt such fear.

Everything about everything has changed for me. I am now single, live far away from my past life, studied Creative Writing at uni, been through domestic violence and yet made some good friends and learnt a lot about the world and my little place in it. Oh, and set my hair free to be its curly self.

Three years ago, at uni, I managed to write a few stories. This year I've felt well enough to write novels again. Slowly, slowly - as my therapist keeps saying.  And she's right - slowly, slowly...

I've missed you all, especially Lane Mathias, Helen Hunt, Cally Taylor, Lucy Diamond, Flowerpot, Karen, all the Kates, Captain Black and all the other 'Novel Races,' How well you've all done!' Proud of you.

Mafia Mother

I don't often blog these days, but I had to put something up because I'm sick to death of seeing my knackered hand rising up in a lady of the lake pose. Instead of Excalibur all I have is a frayed and grubby bandage.

You might be forgiven for thinking this was Kraytwins@blogspot or the lesser known film, The Godmother, but it is only the sons and me getting into the festive mood before a party.

I must clarify a few points.  I am not fat, the boys are way too thin.  I am not short either, they're both nearly 7ft.

On the writing front, I've plotted a new book after spending ages building characters who might just be believable. Might. I struggle with this.  Perhaps a book with just one character would be the thing?

Writers Hand

I've discovered a cure for writers block. 

I haven't been able to type properly for months but had my carpal tunnel op last week so perhaps in another couple.

Of course I now have lots of writerly thoughts but they get lost with the slow tap, tap, taping of my left hand.

Wonder how many of you out there have had self inflicted injury from extreme writing? I am available to make comforting remarks in sympathy.