Today, I decided to bring the manuscript of my latest novel out of hiatus; I have not touched the manuscript since October 2021 – about six months. The provisional title is ‘Joe Bloxhall (b. 1945): a fictional biography‘. I shall give no more away about the book, at this early stage. My purpose, in today’s blog, is to reassure you that writing is, once again, taking place.
It is still rather cold but the sun was out this morning, and I decided to kick-start this new phase by setting myself up as if it were summer. So, I brushed down the garden lounger and made myself comfortable. I then let the muse guide my hand, writing some draft m/s with a ball-point pen and and a pad of lined A4 paper. I like to do this, as a first step, then I type up the material using the Scrivener software for writers (thank you Mr. James Scott Bell). Here is a picture of my external writing studio:
My garden thermometer gave a reading of 10 degrees Centigrade and it was quite windy. So, I wrapped up well with a chunky woollen jumper and a warm hat (I like the large peak, to shade my eyes when the sun is out). Here is a selfie I took indoors using the bathroom cabinet mirror. It looks a bit weird but maybe we can think of it as post-modern realist photography. I’ll try to come up with an even sillier category (if I can be bothered) in due course.
I wrote for about an hour and a half. Once typed up on the PC, with a modicum of editing, that amounted to approximately 750 words. I feel very pleased with myself.
Of course, now that I am back into writing, I may have to keep my blog posts shorter than I should ideally like, and their appearance may be less frequent than my recent posts have tended to be.
Speak to you later, my dear blogophiles.
John's Quavering Pencil 
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