Wednesday 18 February 2009

February Blues Catherine Johnson


I have had about eight weeks of NOT WRITING ENOUGH. Actually not writing anything if you discount some editing and a piece for the newspapers that got spiked. Before I start moaning and descend into Ed Reardon territory may I say that I like being a writer. I like it best when the words are flying and the numbers in my diary (I am almost OCD about word counts) grow faster than the funds in Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scam.
But I have not been in that happy place for some time now.
I have had a few knock backs recently, and judging from the chat amongst other writers I am not the only one. There really is only one thing we can do.
Get up, go for a swim or a walk, talk to our friends. Talk to ourselves about stories. But most of all write.
Because the best cure for all this misery is losing yourself in a really good story. One that makes you feel excited - even if nobody else wants it. That's what I keep telling myself anyway

P.S.
This morning I was sitting in my favourite caff when I saw outside in the street a pigeon wandering about unable to fly because it had a ring doughnut jammed over it's head.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh but your photo looks like such fun, so there must be a story in that. My photo just looks like someone's granny, which is what I am.

I love stories and since I'm going into my 8th decade this year(OMG!) I've many, but I love other people's stories as well. I collect them and write them down and give them back to the folks who've told them. I tend to get bogged down in that and my own stories which exist somewhere in cyberspace tend to slip onto the back burner.

SO, don't give up...famous race car driver Jackie Stewart once said "You can just as well die going 30mph as going 90-so you might as well press on!!"

Anonymous said...

A bit like this?

http://bookchildworld.wordpress.com/2009/01/08/caption-competition/

Lucy Coats said...

I can sympathise, Catherine, being one of those who is also not having a nice time at the moment. Writing about it helps, certainly, for me, as you may see for yourself at http://www.scribblecitycentral.blogspot.com And if I can't escape into my own story world at the moment, then there are a myriad of other wonderful stories from the rest of you to escape into! Whoever wrote that slogan 'Curl Up With a Good Book' was a genius.

Catherine Johnson said...

That photo is twenty years old now, it's me and my daughter on a pony that was owned by the film company I worked for, we kept her in hackney City farm in London and that photo was taken in Victoria Park - you can just see the bandstand in the background. I loved that pony, I rode her around London for two years until we sold her to a happy retirement in the country doing gymkhana games!