Roll on those holidays

Has there been a lot of whining here at Tea Stains lately? Or is it just me? Perhaps I have managed to keep most of the bleating posts in my head.

I’m no longer thinking in terms of missing my November deadline – which isn’t doing me any good – rather, I’m thinking about an end of December deadline. I was prevented from working for nearly three weeks by being in the UK in October and I need to tack that time onto the end of my new deadline so that I can stop beating myself up. Yes, I’m nearly there. I’ll let you know when I finish.

The exams have been done (the results? Not at all shoddy … well done Son) the school production of the Scarlet Pimpernel (absolutely bloody marvellous) finished last night and I’ve done all the artwork owing. But, everyone’s looking a bit spotty and blah; we’ve got definite cases of endoftermitus here at the Towers. Yeah, I know, we’re all tired… but we did start term in the middle of August.

Anyway, here’s a gratuitous picture of the school production. It’s a bit fuzzy… but I did that on purpose to create the period atmosphere. Yeah, right.

It's all talk

I’m back in Bangkok and jetlagged. I went to sleep this afternoon because I couldn’t stay awake which means I’ll wake again tonight (probably).

This morning at 3am: PING I’m awake. I felt pretty good until at Book Group when I had a moment of aphasia while trying to introduce a new member. I knew the existing member’s name – it was in my head – but I couldn’t work out how to make the right sounds and it wouldn’t come out. Sooo embarrassing.

In my final days in the UK I had a horrible, horrible, H.I.D.E.O.U.S (just in case you were in any doubt) realisation: that I share certain genes with my family. I’ve buried it deep and tried to deny that this applies to me but it’s just no good; I’ve got them. I’ve got a hefty dose of Stevens ‘fantasy planning’ genes. We talk about all the things we’re going to do … and that’s all we do: TALK.

OMG.
It’s me and my book.
It’s me and the filing.
It’s me and Charles Dickens, Tom Jones, and Madame Bovary.

I’ve lost the only 750 words I’ve written since January. I talked to Julia about this last Friday (not being a klutz and losing documents) but about the routine: doing it, writing, sitting and doing. It’s all to do with my ‘stop talking about it and just do it’ thing.

I make a big announcement: ‘this is what I’m going to do…’ and then fizzzzz pipple… and it’s gone. The air is thick with the evaporation of my grand plans.

I don’t want to be one of those people who say they want to write a book.