I was going to write that I’ve had a bit of a writing hiatus, but that’s not strictly true. For much of February my husband and I have been celebrating his 60th birthday, and our 10th wedding anniversary. We spent nearly three weeks in Thailand during the big ‘hoorah’. Every day I kept up my travel journal, so I’ve accumulated some 25,000 words of scribblings in that time. That’s hardly slacking! Indeed, I might add that I wish I were that prolific in my garret!
Pete and I in Phang Na Bay, Thailand
It comes back to the ‘why do you write’, well, it helped me make sense of the travels and experiences, as well as anchoring the experiences in a way that photographs can’t. But being back home, well, I’ve lost my writerly self somewhere, and I’m desperately not trying to get too cross with myself. Timing is everything, and next week I’m off with The Writing ReTREAT to develop my craft and, also evidently, reconnect with myself. If I’m honest, I’m feeling a bit scared of my WIP, and a bit adrift from it. That’s one of the things I want to look at next week, but I also want to have a bit of fun with my writing. I think I’m getting too serious, critical and hung up about all things writerly. That’s the downside of sitting alone in my garret, throwing my head on the desk, it’s hard to self-soothe all the time.
So, as a short-term measure to keep myself engaged, and not terrified, I’m preparing a short story for a competition. It will do my writing no harm in the long run, and hopefully distract some of those naysayers that seem to have roosted in the inner recesses of my mind.
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