In lieu of actual writing, and to assuage the angry little man in my head who wants to yell at me at all the times and things I could have been writing but didn’t, here is a list of places I did not write in the last few weeks.

I was at home. I was going to write at home.

Did I write at home? I did not.
Why not?
Because, though I had finished the project I had been working on and knew that this should be, really, a perfect opportunity to sit and do some writing for myself… but the project, while finished, was not *quite* finished, and my brain was finding it difficult to get day release. And also I had the feeling that while I *could* write something joyful and feckless, I should probably, if I was being responsible, concentrate my mind on writing something serious and worky instead, in the cause of Getting More Work, even though I’m not quite sure what that means at the moment.

I got on a plane. I was going to write on the plane.

Did I write while on the plane? No I did not.
Why not?
Because come on. Who actually writes on the plane? We always say we’re going to write on the plane, but then… there’s a movie that we never needed to see before this moment but suddenly desperately want to see. And really we should get some sleep. And we’ll write between sleep and landing but… oh look there’s another movie. Oh are we preparing to land? Already? Well, no matter, if we didn’t write on the plane we can always catch up on writing at the hotel.

I got to a hotel. I was going to write at the hotel.

Did I write at the hotel? No I did not.
Why not?
Because let’s face it, I said I slept on the plane I did not actually sleep on the plane because really, who sleeps on planes? I got to the hotel, and because the hotel was in the uk, I needed to go to the hotel restaurant and find something to eat. Preferably a sausage.

I have become incredibly laser-focused on what I want to eat when I get back to the uk. It’s sausages. So I went in search of a sausage, and took my notebook so I could write… but when I got there, there were too many good conversations to eavesdrop on, and I sat happily, with sausages, listening and gazing out of the window at the cars on the motorway flyover speeding along between my hotel and Glasgow Airport.

I went back to the islands where this blog began. A perfect place to write! 

Did I write while in the islands? No. Of course not.
Why not?
Because I was cleaning, washing, painting, putting furniture together. Also I had no internet. Which is a bit of an impediment. Sadly (but, for my writing, luckily!…) I was only there for five days. And then

I was going to be spending time in airline lounges and hotels and planes and there, there, finally, I would be doing some writing.

Did I do writing in any of those places? No.
Why not?
/shrug.
mumbles.

Honestly I kind of give up on myself at this point.

However… ALL THOSE THINGS DONE, I knew that at the very least, I would be home, and jetlagged, and had nothing else to do… so then, finally then, I would get down to it and do the writing I had been meaning to do all that time.

 

And then I caught covid on the plane.

 

sigh.

 

(…but now I finally have… well, slept, and slept some more, and now have sat down and written out all the places and times I was going to write and failed to… Now I can just give that self-immolating part of my brain some rest, and get on with just letting ideas out instead.

So I guess what I am saying is now? NOW I’m definitely in the right place and time to do writing. And we know how that goes.)