Anyone got any suggestions for hosting companies which aren’t loathsome? I need me some new digs.

Writing more often just isn’t happening. It’s been a month or so – more probably – since I made the effort to open up this page and actually do something. In the meantime, I’ve managed to write about ten thousand words towards this novel lark. I’m feeling a bit reluctant to talk about that, partly in case I jinx it, and partly because I find it surprisingly difficult to talk about these things. When I was writing up my PhD thesis, I used to avoid talking about my ‘work’, because I always felt like a fraud. Part of me waiting for the tap on the shoulder, for the person who could see me for what I really was, right up to my viva, and indeed beyond; the temporary burst of confidence that the viva gave me appears to have dried up and evaporated in the few years that have passed by since then… And talking about writing fiction is even worse, I learn. It’s as if every idea that I have fermenting in my brain becomes trite or shite as soon as it’s expressed. The very moment it leaves either my mouth or my fingertips, it gains a sheen of shittery that utterly obscures any merit it once had, and it leaves me feeling mildly embarrassed at having thought such things, never mind having contemplated writing about them. So, that bit’s going really, really well. Oh yes. Super progress.

However, when I am able to step back from it and view it with something approaching objectivity, I can see that what seems predictable or familiar territory to me may well not appear that way to others. My research background isn’t the stuff of normal life, after all, and as a non-academic friend recently reminded me, not everyone does this stuff, so being able to work my research into a fictional situation may be a good thing. May. Might. Not sure.

Anyway, that’s it. That’s what I’m doing. That’s why I’m not here. Well, partly. The other reasons are about 2′ 6″ and about 3′ 6″. And covered in cocoa.

Other news: Quercus leaves his job at the end of March. Big changes all round. He’s going to try to work for himself. I’m equal parts chuffed and terrified. I’ve continued to lose weight, and now appear to have settled at just under ten stone. It’s kind of amazing, and utterly joyous. Mirth is – somehow – nineteen months, and walking, talking and generally tormenting us by performing terrifying acts of physical motion. Hero is enjoying school still, though she’s sometimes quite tired; her energy doesn’t seem to be diminished, though, and she still has more beans than anyone her size has a right to possess.

And you?

It’s not you, it’s me. Back soon, I hope.