Author diaries

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19 June 2004 Entry: "Out of my head"

Its been too long since I last wrote anything here. I think I was chuntering about Transco and the evils of privatisation way back in December . Everythings fine now of course we still have gas, the light switches on when you want it, and today we have been connected to something called Blue Yonder which sounds pretty transcedental to me and hence I'm all for it. ( see later for a bit of blue yonder thinking) So how's the novel going ? My reply when people ask me is, to say the least, evasive. Like I always have to cough when I answer or stare at a patch of wall fixedly trying to think of something witty to say. It usually comes out as something along the lines of (cough) " Oh, you know." or " Fits and starts" Sometimes I just say " Don't ask" and people generally don't ever again . The truth is I've finished 30, 000 words and haven't enjoyed writing most of it. So ... I've spent the last 6 months for a couple of days a week doing something that I'm not getting paid for, that I'm not enjoying and nobody is interested in reading, is that not dumb or what?
Two weeks ago I had a revelation... rather than give the whole damn thing up (and I have been tempted at times,) I decided I had to work on my attitude to it. The reason why I dont enjoy it is that for much of the time I'm sitting trying to write and telling myself that its crap. Hence we have the basic simple flaw, the piece of granite in the stilleto shoe...the critical sawing voice that craps on about you've never done this that the other your a useless jerk...pitiful self loathing drivel actually. So Mary .. its time to shape up. so this is what I did...
I went to the Spanish Pyrenees for a week with a group of strangers, slept in a bunk bed, ate a lot of peas , (many steeped in mayonnaise) and bent my body into some very odd positions for 4 hours a day.. I'm talking Yoga here, and meditation and strange concepts I've not come across before like Mulla Banda and Pryanyama. I feel great now...and am looking forward to getting down to some focused work. Big thanks to John Murray for acting as a fiction consultant to me and the buddhist boys on the retreat for imparting some of their tried and tested methods for calming the mind and aiding concentration. I'm writing this on Saturday night at 9.50 pm when all good writers should be downing the vino or disco biscuits but hey not me... two slices of Vienetta have done the trick on that score and actually I've got to sign off now so's i can sqeeze another short session of meditation into my blissed out day.
Bye for now.