I'm Back!!!!!!

Woke up this morning feeling back to my old self again.  What happened?  I don't know and I really don't want to know!  Suffice it to say that when I opened my eyes this morning - after my first solid night's sleep in a week - I just knew that the dark clouds had lifted, the monster was safely back in its cave and I was on top of the world!  Phew! What a relief!

Had a good look round the study tonight.  It is so higgledy piggledy!  I still haven't managed to sort it all out. And to add insult to injury, it seems to have suddenly become a storage area for charity shop stuff and boot sale stuff - simply because there's nowhere else for it to go!  It drives me nuts.  Have got a family wedding  this weekend so I am not going to get much done tonight - but afterwards, I am determined to get some semblance of order in here.  I don't mind it becoming a repository for unwanted items as long as all the stationery is in its right place and the books are in some kind of decent order (right now I have Stephen King mixed in with Sue Townsend, kids books with adults books, non-fiction with fiction.  The only thing that seems to be in one place is all my poetry books - thank God for that - I would fade away if I couldn't get to those!)  Yup - higgledy-piggledyness  is really the sign of a disordered brain - now where did I read that?  And I can't have a disordered brain!  I'm a writer.  Or maybe I can because  I'm a writer!

Have been seriously thinking of backing up all my stuff and looking on the Internet.  Why are some Clouds 
free and others not?  Should I trust the free ones?  If they are to be trusted, why aren't they all free?  Or is some entrepreneur out there just trying to rake in our hard earned cash?  How do Clouds work anyway?
Answers on a postcard please ...

Guess what happened to me the other week?  My Steve left for work at 8pm as usual on the Wednesday night and, five minutes later, I heard the front door open.  Thinking he'd come back for something he'd forgotten, I went out to the hall to meet him and saw the front door slam shut from the outside.  I yanked it open but couldn't see anyone - no Steve - nobody.  The street looked eerily deserted.  I shut the door, walked round the house shouting "Hello?  Hello?" (in retrospect this was a really idiotic thing to do but at the time I was still trying to find Steve) and then rang Steve (I was still partially convinced he was hiding somewhere and this was some kind of elaborate joke - not that it is something he'd be likely to do).  He was well and truly on his way to work.  Like my gallant knight in armour he said he'd come straight home but not before barking "Call the police!".  He actually got back just after the police arrived.  They did a thorough sweep (is that what they say or is it only something that gets said in films?) but couldn't find anything - and  Steve took the night off work because I was pretty shaken up.  I suddenly realised how vulnerable I can be. It was a very scary experience!  The police think it was an opportunistic break-in and that my opening the living room door totally freaked him/her/them out which was why they scarpered so quickly.  He/she/they obviously thought the house was empty.  The hall light now stays on all night and the door gets double-locked as we go out (even if one of us is still inside).  Better safe than sorry.  So take heed - there are badd'uns out there.  Anyway I am okay; that is the main thing.

Anyway I think I have bent your ear long enough tonight (can you bend someone's ear if something is being said visually as opposed to audibly.  Is it ok to say I've bent your eye long enough?).  Anyway I just wanted you to know I am back to normal (as if you didn't know).  Catch up again soon!

My Great Dark Monster ....

There are two halves to any brain.  With my brain, one side is full of good intentions, plans, targets, goals and a sense of joy that I am alive and have achieved so much.  Generally speaking this is the side of my brain that is actively in use, tackling every challenge head on, enjoying every little success no matter how small - a published letter or poem, a good day at the day job, an especially nice weekend or time with loved ones.  But then there is the other side of my brain and that side is the one I try to suppress and ignore, the one that wags a calloused finger in my face sometimes and drags down my self-esteem.  It tells me I am wasting my time, chasing dreams that will never come true, that I have been a failure in so many ways.  It says to me - Jilly, you COULD have saved your parents' marriage when you were 12 if you had only tried harder; you COULD have been a great writer if you really wanted to but obviously you didn't really want to because man, just look at you now,  all in a nasty sing-songy, playground taunty kind of voice.   I hate that voice.  There was a time when that voice could wipe out any of my good intentions and did so, frequently.  But I always managed to bounce back and  shut it back into its dark cave and leave it there.   Actually, that voice has been pretty silent for the last couple of years at least.  But it woke up from its hibernation on Thursday last week and I just cannot shut it up right now and that is bothering me.  Not so much the fact it is there.  More the fact I can't shut it up.  I have always managed before.  Why can't I now?

I have been trying since Thursday to pinpoint exactly what started it off.  I am no closer to finding  that elusive answer.  I have not argued with my Steve who is as sweet and loving and giving as ever.  I have not dropped a shilling and found a farthing.  I have not rowed with anyone.  I got a brilliant review at the Day Job, my children, grandchildren and siblings all love me unconditionally.  The Young Writers are about to start again,  I have published quite a few bits in the past year, I have got back the rights to Yucketypoo, The Book is at the Publisher, I have written SO MUCH poetry lately so why this sense  of impending doom?  Why do I feel so down when I am clearly on the up?
I don't know.  I really don't.

All I know is that I need to snap out of it because it is a huge famished dark monster feeding on all my doubts, my misgivings, my sense of worth and I can't let it win, I really can't.  I think there is only one things for it.  I will have to read Og Mandino's The Choice again.  And fight to beat this beast. I will soon have it scuttling back to its cave. I have to start right now ...

Amazing ...

It is a cold, wet, windy night and, as I sit here at my desk, I can see the raindrops running down the windows and the trees swaying in the wind beyond.  It seems like it has been raining forever but oh, did I see the most amazing rainbow this afternoon?  It swooped across the sky like an artists pallet, very vivid and beautiful! Quite took my breath away!  I'm sorry but I am a sucker for nature's brilliance.  I make sure I notice the magpies playing in the tress, the squirrels racing round the park, the rabbits nibbling at Mitcham Common - anything and everything that compounds the natural world, really.  Everytime I see a sunset or a sunrise or a garden covered in pure white snow, it stirs something within me.  Maybe that is why I am a writer and poet?  It is so nice to know that what stirs me has also stirred writers of times past.  The world maybe moving into a thoroughly cyber age, but no matter how advanced technology gets, there will always be flowers, trees, animals, people and nature to look at in awe and love.

I had a good start to February.  I am up to date with all the Young Writer stuff, have The Book at a publisher and, yesterday, I got home from the day job to find two pieces of published work awaiting me - one is a letter in the latest Writing Magazine, the other is a poem entitled - rather appropriately - HOPE.  I am just so lucky, really.  If I can keep that up then the sky is the limit!  Of course I would love to write full time and earn a living from it - but even if I never get paid from my writing again, I will always love it!  There are lots of things I could live without.  But I could never ever live without my writing!