All Those Lovely Blogs

I've been blog-browsing this morning - just aimlessly looking, checking them out, clicking to follow here and there, posting a comment. I don't know what I'd do without them. When you lock yourself away, hermit-like, letting the phone click over to messages, rather than answering it, you need to make contact at some point, or go a bit mad, eventually.

My blogs rarely reflect what I had for dinner last night, or the books I've been reading (which is an odd one, I admit), or what I did on the weekend, or how I feel about relationships. That stuff ends up in my novels. I can't seem to lightly blog - I mean why would anyone really care? But looking around, seeing all of you happily chatting about this, that, and the other, blissfully unconcerned with how pertinent it is to the particular blog, I am a bit awed, really. It reminds me of schooldays when all the girls were chattering about girl-things, but I couldn't think of anything worth saying. They were all so good at it, while I was a bit - let's face it - boring. I was often too much inside my head, especially in my early teens. I got better at the lighter touch as I discovered boys. Suddenly clothes were important, shoes were powerful, hair was crucial - all those things I'd had no interest in earlier, and suddenly I was chit-chatting.

It all came home to me yesterday, how bottled up I've been, when a friend from down the road popped in with some art magazines, and a little box he wants decorated. I astonished myself by how much I talked! Poor man, sitting there, not even being offered a cup of coffee while I waffled on. I was conversation-starved. When he finally stood up to leave, I was a bit taken aback. Oh, no, I wasn't finished yet - I hadn't told him about...

Mind you, he did his share of talking too; he's not a wimpy man, and knows when to take the helm conversationally, but I certainly hogged a lot of it.

So it reminded me to take more time off, away from the novel, and just be myself. The whole world does not revolve around my desk and computer, after all, but it does sometimes feel like it. I've been doing quite a lot of writing, as you'll see by the word count of Strachan, but I'm going to forcibly take a break. I'm going to try, at least.


Dear Kylie, at EtsyVeg, interviewed me for their blog and it was featured today. Of course, it mainly concerns the art side of me, but I thought you might find it interesting. You can find it here.