No more apologising

I read recently a load of old letters from my early days in Bangkok. Severals things struck me about their tone but the most depressing thing was that practically every single one began with an apology. I'm sorry I have taken so long to write; sorry not to write sooner; sorry. Sorry. Sorry. God it was depressing.

A woman in Gap dressing room in New York once told me off for apologising. I'd only been with her for 35 seconds.

There's going to be no more apologising for sporadic posting.

I missed making a fuss of Tea Stains birthday on Friday. So what? I'm not offended and actually, I toasted it several times during the day; the best one being at lunch, with a dahl and a fizzy water in a pretty blue glass. Yay. Get me.

But five years of blogging: that's not bad huh?

I am having a little bit of a change of direction. I am out playing with different ideas. I suppose I shall come here at some point and let you know how and why. Maybe.

In the meantime,

Happy New Lunar Year

♪♪ I can see clearly now ♪♪

I’m not a planner. I can’t. My intention to get a bit more cerebral about managing the plot has evaporated because I can’t map out what, where and how. I still have no idea how to manage what’s coming; I’m just doing it a scene at a time. Nothing makes any sense to me until I'm writing ... and then things become clearer and I realise what's going on.

But I have been writing. It just turns out that, at the moment, I write better when I’m out. I think this is because I’m back in Husband’s office at home, our wifi internet having gone wrong again, been fixed and now not working as well as it did.

I’ve been increasing the profits of Bangkok’s various branches of Starbucks. On Saturday I wrote a massive (for me) 1300 words and on Sunday I wrote another huge 1030 words. (500 words are normal ish and 700 is a lot for me.)

But although I know roughly what is coming in each scene I sit down to write, I don’t know the how and the exactly what until I start writing.

So today, I’m celebrating not being a strategist but being 'a flier by the seat of my pants-er.'

And now, I’m off to find a branch of Starbucks, and there’s a big choice.