One of my big dreams is to write an adult detective novel. I have scores of notebooks filled with ideas, plots and character sketches for it. My office walls are festooned with story maps and photos taken on fact-finding sorties to my favourite countries. Am I making use of them? Am I, hell. Sorry for the swear-word but now that uninterrupted writing opportunity has been thrust upon me, I'm finding it incredibly difficult to settle down in my newly decorated office and write.
My daily routine has been shattered. No endless trips to coffee shops on Scarbrough seafront with my macbook and pens. No browsing in charity shops and flea markets while mulling over ideas. I am stuck at home and everywhere I look there are procrastination opportunities that are proving impossible to resist.
This week, after finding out that there are thousands of people in the same situation as me, I've taken the big decision to drop the guilt and embrace my period of self-isolation. So here's what I've been up to on lockdown.
I've been expanding my cooking repertoire. I've taught myself to make proper curry, I've experimented with different kinds of bread making and cooked myself a birthday pie.
I've gone for great walks in my neighbourhood, increasing my foot-count every week.
Perhaps best of all, I've been spending time chatting with my family overseas. Here's a picture of my parents in lockdown on Malta. They don't seem too distressed. Let's hope I can visit them again in the flesh.
9 comments:
How lovely. I'm having the same issue with not being able to write those things I've so long wanted to write. It's maddening! Happy birthday - nice-looking pie x
Thanks, Stroppy Author. It is maddening, isn't it? I get up in the morning with the best of writing intentions but the day just slips through my fingers.
Lovely pictures! Seems to me you’ve been using your time very well.
Thanks, Sue. I'd like to shed the guilt entirely but there's still a little voice inside that keeps repeating, 'you should be working, you should be producing stuff."
So true. Day after day during this lockdown, I've glanced at the clock and said, "How the **** did it get to be that time?" The days seem to pass at lightening speed and although I'm busy, busy, busy, I seem to get nothing done.
I set the alarm for 5.30am in the morning, Susan, and then again for 7.00am but I still don't get much writing done. I've promised myself things are going to change this week.
Nice photo from Bubble Street. :)
I note a pinch of pessimism in that article. The lock-down is hard to accept: but that is the only way ahead.
Bubble Street was, and still is, a small dead end alley. But it was a street for us, and we imagined all sorts of things. I am still at it. I still keep my mind sane by forcing it into overdrive on imagination.
Today we are forced to work between four walls. But in my mind I am giving piano concerts with the London Philarmonic. You just need to find that magic spray which renders them invisible. Forget those newly decorated walls: those are only meant for others to see on internet. You can see beyond those walls.
:) :) :)
P.S. Tomorrow's recital will probably be an interpretation of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody.
P.S.2 Looking forward for that detective novel. It would be nice to have a lady investigative journalist as the main protagonist.
Thanks for that encouraging comment, I. I look forward to Bohemian Rhapdsody tomorrow. I used to know every note and word of that by heart and would make up a film in my mind to go with it. My novel is indeed going to star a female detective and the least likely candidate that people would imagine would be a sleuth. It's partly based on a very young version of someone we both know.
I feel exactly the same. Time to focus! (I say every day). Ps: I love detective novels and would particularly love yours, I know! That's a great picture of your parents.
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