Where have I been? You may well ask. Since Miniatura, which was lovely but a distant memory I had no idea I was going to get lost in a book quite so readily.
The thing about a book is that it soaks up all your writing like a sponge. There’s about 68,000 words of it so far, which is nearly a whole small book already and it is very exciting. I keep telling myself jokes and then laughing. Many people would have things to say about people who laugh at their own jokes but if I don’t find it funny, no one else will.
I started a writer’s group. Some months ago I saw a writer’s group advertised and went along but sadly it folded after one session. This did me a favour because it was quite expensive and in the middle of town so there was parking to figure into the cost too and there were a lot of people, so most got about ten minutes to read their work, which is not much time.
Our group is superior I feel. As we meet in each other’s homes, it’s free and as there are only two of us we get half the time each, the time being what we feel it should be.
It is strange to read your work out loud. Very strange. Because when it’s just you and me you do it in your head and so do I. It’s practically telepathic. Reading out loud is scary but helpful. You can spot the mistakes the minute you say them. The purpose of the group is to egg each other on because the real writer’s dilemma is not what to write, the general moral dilemma of the world at large, the suitability of the subject matter for the readership or any of that. If you go back to the last exam you swotted for you will know the problem exactly.
Let us swat, the exam is but six weeks away. Long enough. Good. I will break it up into six equal chunks. Excellent. Now the first chunk I will begin
after I have rearranged the bookshelf, tallest on the left, shortest on the right. Good, looks a lot better. Now I will begin. After tea.
Nice tea. Right now I will………………have an early night and get a head start first thing.
I am awake I am sitting with the book, I am rubbing my face. Goodness, how long is it since I plucked my eyebrows? I must do this first.
Doesn’t it make your face cold when you have no eyebrows? I wonder how long it will take for them to grow back? I’ll look it up.
Five hours! Five hours on different search engines. All that stuff about giant land snails, who knew? Right. Swatting, well after a late lunch. Must eat brain food.
I am back from the shopping for brain food. I have six watermelons. Six. I will cut them up now so I can easily get them while I am swatting.
Two hours online for plastic storage boxes. Even if they arrive tomorrow I still have to find somewhere to put six cut up watermelons. I know, I’ll eat some, it is brain food after all.
I haven’t been that sick for years. I’d better have an early night.
What time is this? I haven’t slept in until this late for ages. I’m starving but I really don’t fancy watermelon. I must go shopping.
Fancy meeting Mary at the shops! I haven’t seen her for years. I’ll swat tomorrow after we’ve been to the cinema.
I would start first thing but it is the weekend. You have to have a weekend. All work and no play makes Jack something or other, forgotten what, a dull boy, yes. Can’t be dull. Got to swat.
Right. Five weeks, five weeks to the exam. I will break it up into five chunks. Five. And I will begin
the minute I have tidied my sock drawer. Exactly then. Yes.
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So the writer’s group, that’s what it is for. It prevents you rearranging the bookshelf and everything else that follows.
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