...but there's not going to be a Grouse and Partridge story this Christmas!
I tried. I really did. I had quite a good idea and I was desperate to write it. But time has been my enemy: I'm weighted down with work from uni and work from work and there aren't enough hours in the day to do what I ought to be doing, let alone what I want to. There've been several casulties in the run up to Christmas but this is the one that hurts me the most. My Christmas holiday looms but brings with it little prospect of respite: two 4,000 word essays required by January and not a clue how to approach either of them yet. For the first time this term, I've begun to wonder if the course is worth the effort - and yet the part of the course I most want to do is next term's unit and to give up now would be costly and pointless.
So my characters are languishing in the mirk and cold of my rapidly disintergrating brain, looking mournful and unloved as Christmas approaches because I cannot bring them back to life. Tonight, I wonder if this is the end of the line for my writing altogether: I think I've been deluding myself since Scotch Pine that I was just between books. In fact, I think I'm stuck. I realise I've stopped thinking of myself as someone who writes. I'm just someone, once again, who used to...
