On not writing

I have not written a post in ages.  Ages!  What can I say? It is due to the finishing of many things.

I say finishing.  It is, of course, only a furlough.  The furlough, being, a bit of a holiday from obligation.  A week of sloth and sun, reading the juicy books that feel too long for home: Byatt’s The Children’s Book, Faber’s The Crimson Petal and the White, Mantel’s Wolf Hall, now at the beginning of Kingsolver’s The Lacuna.  Rich, epic journeys all, and my holiday was/is much the richer for them.  But Monday will find me back at my desk, back at the research and the writing.

The editing and rewriting of the first novel that I hope are done are not, of course, really done and the “work” I had and finished will begin again, then increase in earnest when the schools reopen.  There are autumn events to plan, a schedule to make for the rest of this year, the beginning of next.

There is a hope that I can go back to where I left the second novel, when the rewriting took over, and find something there…but I probably will simply begin again.  I probably will have to. I imagine I will read what I have left and think – no, that’s not it at all.  The first scratchings away at character and voice are so tentative – like parting clouds, like shaping mist.  What will I find when I read what I left?

But that’s for Monday.  Today it is raining in Liverpool. There is a book to be read, there are catch-ups of Masterchef to be watched.  It is still a holiday, even as “real life” reminds you it is waiting for you…