LOST XMAS, MY YOUTH, & WRITING TIME

Okay, where did Christmas go? I swear it was here yesterday. I still have mountains of Christmas chocolates on the dining table and bottles of liqueurs and bubbly we got given too. My Xmas sweater and fleece are washed, dried and back their box for Christmas 2025. My son still hasn't moved anything he got on Christmas day from the place he put it after opening it! So, I've put the lot on the staircase in the hope he'll take them to his room. Some hope, I've just finished putting away his ironing from 5 days ago and putting a weeks worth of dirty socks in his laundry basket.

Frankly, its quite horrible seeing life from this age, its speeding past at a rate of a week in a day. I am so envious of folk under forty. They hear about the odd distant cousin or aunt that gets ill and passes. It doesn't touch you too deeply. Of course you're upset, but you weren't close. Then you reach the later years and people getting ill, from serious conditions are closer, both geographically speaking and familywise. Worse still its more frequent. Everyone who speaks to you, tells you of a relative who's become unwell, then died. Quite often from Cancer, and soon its popping up in every conversation you have. Until it touches home, your home, then its devastating.

At that moment you can finally see, there is an end to this life. You can understand other people's feelings, fears and more - their terror. There's a madness that takes over, even temporarily. Where's the Will? Did I make one? What about all my stuff? The treasured possessions. Will anyone want them when I'm gone?

Programmes, like Antiques Roadshow makes me think - not doing that. Watching nearest & dearest  stating how much they loved their parents and extended family, then sitting amazed as they sell off their mother's precious jewellery, their father's valued war medals for a handful of notes. Treasured heirlooms that to my way of thinking,  should be handed down to their descendants. Either there are no descendants, or  those that do exist don't care, don't prize such items, seeing them as only as freebies, unearnt income.  Money that the children, or grandchildren, now in their sixties see as their rightful money. God I hate getting old.

I'm hoping not every blog going forward will moan about the joyfulness of aging. Hopefully just this one, brought about by Cancer chasing our tails. Well it can jolly well bugger off. I don't have time to die!!! What about your writing, do I hear the ghosts whisper?

There's a thing called writer's block. I've never suffered with it. I can write about anything and everything. Check out some of my earlier blogs if you don't believe me, I've written one a month for the last ten years. Starting on my birthday in May 2015, that will be one hundred and twenty blogs by May. I could make a book out of them! 
However, things have been happening to me and my husband that resulted in me stopping writing completely without noticing. I filled my time up sorting out Timmy's launch, doing the odd bit of editing, but no actually writing new words. A couple of weeks ago, I sat back reflected and realized this fact. I was a bit shocked. Analyzing it, I realized my subconscious must have decided I wasn't going to be around long enough to produce any more work than I've written already. I have finished writing the Further Tales of Timmy and his Magic Toe Beans, Mustard & Marmalade Dachshund Dog Detectives and the Case of the Missing Fillet Steak. (Yes, its probably the longest title in history),  They are in illustration as we speak. I also have The Unshakable Mouse written too.

Once I consciously recognized I'd been stalling. I wrote the The Hairy Tortoise in two hours. I've come up with several more picture book titles: Hedgie & Quack, The Dancing Snail, and Tilly the Firm Worm. ( I have been told this last title might be more suitable as an 18+ picture book! I'll tell you more in my Feb blog) There's  also a follow-up to Chicken Wizard that I've yet to name.

Finally, I've re-started writing Aquasapien Four - Legacy with several thousand words under my belt. Still a long way to go. I've decided to finish this first. I want the Series complete before I move back to A Sackful of Dragons, because I figure, being a side story to Witch on the Warpath and set in Margate it is likely to do well.

That's it for January. I've bemoaned the loss of Christmas, my youth and my writing time. Going forward I'm planning to bring positivity and success. Hopefully, before Easter is upon us, though judging by the Easter eggs I've just seen on sale in M & S I might be a tad too late.