She's back!!

image from internet

I know, I know...once again the blog got filed under ‘bury head in sand’ and the year is suddenly rounding up on the middle-end of January. Gadzooks! Apologies (and I have to give an extra thanks very much to a particular reader who gave me a gentle boot up the backside to get going again. You know who you are!)
Right then. Where are we? Ahh yes...a smashing and relaxing Xmas with my sister and her fiance, a tub-thumping New Year and a crash dive into the bleak mid winter. Such I believe was the pattern for many of us, running hell bent towards the end of the year, eyes shut, fingers in our ears, shouting ‘ Yabadabaddooooo! We made it!’ only to find there was no ‘it’ to make and the morning after was still full of plot holes and winter and ‘what next’s and job hunting and cut backs and the usual hangover of world politics.
I realised that although my 2011 needed to include such things as ‘income’ and ‘love’ and ‘adventure’, I wasn’t going to be able to do any of it or even think straight until I had finished the first draft of my thriller ‘Witchgirl.’ The only problem was that it didn’t seem to want to be written. I tried concentrated blasts. Nope. I snuck up on it, pretending to walk past the computer and then ambushing the keyboard. Nope. I turned off facebook. (This helped but was unsustainable), and I even attempted to remain seated in three hour blocks three times a day. Nada. Not even an eloquently constructed sausage. I whined at everyone (hence facebook on again) and eventually went to far as to moan about the unfairness of it all to my poor cousin in the States- she of the post back surgery-and-by-the-way-I-am-still -in-agony,-still-have-kids-and-a-job- to-deal with-and-am-not-allowed-to-even-swivel-let-alone- pick-up-my-own-martini- glass, cousin. I called to cheer her up with my whining.

'Tanvir,' she said. 'Just write it.'

'Whatdaya mean?' I asked sulkily.' I am a creative. I have to wait... '

'Just get to the end and THEN go back and make it pretty.'

'Really?'

'Really! '

And so and so after much whimpering I finally tucked in my chin and did a slightly off centre judo roll into my final few chapters. And it stinks! Hell yeh! Trust me I am not being modest here. It pongs big time.. but at least I am now in the final few thousand words.
I intend to get to the end by THE END OF THE MONTH! Dad a daaaaa!

And that’s bascically why I have been unblogged folks. At the moment it hasn’t been worth the wait but maybe..just maybe...after a great deal of plot darning, some character renames, an additional sex scene and a spell check this blasted book might be my ticket into 2011 after all.

Apart from the above mentioned, I didn’t really have many resolutions this year but I did decide to continue the one major lesson I learnt last year. I learnt that life can be hard BUT it is you who decides if life is shit. It’s a very simple attitude correction. Feels like having one’s posture adjusted by a physiotherapist. You may feel like a plonker as they twist you into shape; elbows back, neck relaxed, chin in..but then your entire spine suddenly feels gooey with relief, all supple and sexy. Problem is that it takes practice. One is barely out the clinic door before one is slumping and chin poking all over the shop again. You have to keep telling yourself, straighten out, boobs out, elbows and chin IN.
Same with life. I don’t mind hard. Hard is just a challenge and it feels good to get through things that are hard. ‘Shit’ on the other hand is a steady circular downward thing. (I know my metaphors are getting out of hand) I have learnt that approaching things as ‘hard’ as opposed to ‘shit’ makes them possible, sometimes even exciting.
So from now on everytime I hear myself winigng about things being just so shit , inclduing the problems involved with getting my novel fixed, or money, or eyes, I will straighten up and say nope...things are probably going to be hard but that's quite all right. Boobs out, chin in, come on 2011!!

Grace Dec 2010 (c) T. Bush