The good life

Two months. Just shocking, isn't it? Luckily, my novelling hasn't fallen as far as my blogging, although I did give myself a holiday for the, er, holidays. It was essential survival tactics.

But today I got back to it, and I was surprised at how happy I was to be back in that world again. I'd missed it. I'd missed my characters, and their universe. My first step to writerly rehabilitation this morning was to re-read the first few chapters to get back in the flow, and it was fun. Weirdly, 'fun' isn't a word I often associate with writing. 'Rewarding,' yes. 'Enjoyable', 'exhilarating', even occasionally 'thrilling', but rarely fun. I agonise over details; I delete more than I write. I do a lot of frowning at the screen and shaking my head. My husband can sit down, crack his knuckles and start typing away without pause, whipping out a cracking little scene and not worrying too much about the flaws. I make him shut the office doors when he does that, so I don't hear all that prolific typing and get jealous.

But today? That was fun. I put on a weird mix of Daft Punk, Muse, Live, Billie Holliday, and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, and then I let all that atmosphere gel into a scene about the nightlife in a great city in the belly of a clockwork ship, where the tick-tock of the gears set the rhythm for musicians and pedestrians alike. It may be a really stupid idea, and it might not make the final cut. But damn, it was fun to write.