Today, my brain hurts.

A lot!

I see this as a GOOD SIGN. It means my brain is bursting with ideas. It hurts because the ideas are battling to be first in the queue to get out of the grey matter and on to (virtual) paper.

The screenplay has the biggest handbag and the sharpest elbows. It's barged its way right to the front, shouting 'me-me-me!'

Very well, screenplay. You shall have your reward for sheer persistence.

I will write you.

I will finish you.

Today.

“Sunday is the golden clasp that binds together the volume of the week”

Oh dear...Teddy needs the sick bucket again.

So do I. I blame Henry Longfellow.

I was contemplating...when you work from home, is Sunday any different from any other day of the week?

1. I have a lie-in until about 8.30 and THEN go to the yard.
2. Peter is here so I feel obliged to be tidy.
3. I don't get bombarded with e-mails and phonecalls asking me to do things URGENTLY

That's about it.

Hmmmm...Must do better with my Sundays...

It's no good...I can't do cute.

"Working from home is simply a euphemism for sloth, apathy, staring out of the window and random surfing of the internet"

I beg to differ, Mr. Boris Johnston, Mayor of London! (It's hard to take ANYTHING he says very seriously, isn't it?)

He goes on to say:

"The office is the natural habitat of Homosapiens. It is the place we like to go during the day, just as baboons choose to congregate on some special kop or crag. Like baboons, we go there to groom and to socialise. We find that we need the tension and the jokes, not to mention the acrimony and the rivalry and the tears, and frankly no amount of electronic interchange is a substitute for that ability to gossip and plot,"

No I DON'T need tension, acrimony, rivalry and tears. It hinders me.

Dear Boris also argues that working at home is "supremely dispiriting" and deprives people of a vital stimulus of competition. "Your mental flywheel is hardly turning, and why should it? There is no-one to impress, no one to intrigue against, no one to worry about and that is the real problem with working from home," he said.

"The beauty of an office is that it creates terrors of one kind or another, while at home you are obliged to cudgel your own flanks, to create your own fear - and, in the stupor of your domestic surroundings, you fail to make the leap of imagination."

BOLLOCKS!

Am I allowed to say 'Bollocks' on my own site? I think I'll give myself permission. And here's a rather tasteful picture to go with it, by Martin Lye of Bromley.

I was moved to refer to BJ's (an unlucky accident, those initials?) oh-so-amusing outburst because it's Saturday and I'm just about to start work proof-reading a 56-page magazine. The job came in at 5.45 p.m. last night, marked 'urgent.'

The trouble with working from home is NOT getting started or being distracted (for me, at any rate) - it's actually being able to STOP.

So, take that, Mr. Johnson!

How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news...

That's me being all biblical for once. I hope you find my feet quite beautiful. I did cut my toenails specially.

The trouble is, it's all good news for ME, but I can only hope that my optimism will bring a smile to your faces and encourage you to believe that life is full of possibilities for yourselves.

Yes, teddy has resorted to the sick bucket after the above. He didn't appreciate the sincerity in my cheesiness.




So...first there was the premiere.

Then...I learned that my logline had achieved the Top 30 in a contest so I'm on to writing the first ten pages of a new feature.

Then...Quirky Tales were properly launched on Fun Kids Live - you can see here

Then...my article about Sleepytime Tales was published in ABC Sussex

And - I posted off the first four chapters of my novel yesterday which might not sound much, but to me it's a Big Achievement because it's been weighing on my mind, stopping me from getting on with other things.

My mind has wings today!

Tidy desk, tidy mind

See, my desk IS tidy and it IS organised.

And it IS a metaphor for my mind.

(Hmmmm. I have failed to convince even myself, except for the bit about the metaphor)

When I DO tidy my desk, I suffer from piles that no haemorrhoid cream can touch:

And it makes me gloomy and dull-brained.

I'm just having a bad desk day today. It's been brought on by a surfeit of admin. The thing is, I can write pages of novels and screenplays and stories for children and poetry and...and...regardless of the state of my desk. I simply don't notice.

Today, I have to write query letters and synopses. The state of my desk (and my mind) somehow seems to MATTER. And these tedious but necessary tasks seem to take so much TIME.

So, I shall tidy my desk and my mind. THEN I'll be able to write such a cracking letter that no literary agent for children's fiction will be able to resist me.

I think I have procrastination down to a fine art.

Catching Up...

Today's the day. So much to do. So little brain-power.

I adore this picture and would love to credit it to someone but Google wouldn't tell me who. It effectively sums up how I feel today.

First, back to the premiere and Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones.

When I write, when I'm creating, public acclaim is very, very far from my mind. I write because I love to write and because there are things bursting out of my brain that I need to put into words.

BUT once a film or a book is out there - well, tell me who in the world WOULDN'T be delighted to be congratulated and applauded and interviewed and generally feted?

It's validation. It's acknowledgment. It's reassurance that I'm not forever offering my heart and soul into a bottomless pit.

I WAS scared going to the premiere all on my own (and only one glass of Chardonnay too!) but sometimes there's serendipity...that man Seth Godin again...

 Read here about Wonder and Anger  

 Seriously, it made a huge difference to me.

Applause is the spur of noble minds...

"...the end and aim of weak ones" (Edmund Burke)

Discuss.

Later. I have to get to work.

The premiere went better than I could ever have hoped...