IN PRAISE OF MSLEXIA

Have you ever heard of Mslexa? It is a quarterly magazine that targets mainly writing women and I have subscribed to it for about four years. I read a brilliant feature in the current issue today that struck a real chord and actually re-lit the candle of my heart. It is by a novelist called Rachel Zadok who was saying how much harder she has been finding it to write her second book than she did her first. It was almost an epiphonus moment for someone whose inner writer has been slowly but surely dying, leaving a hole the size of the Grand Canyon in her heart! I was so moved by Rachel's words that I could actually hear the chains dropping away. Thank God I am not the only one! Thank God I am not alone in the hair-tearing, gut-wrenching, heart-breaking struggle to overcome Writer' bloody Block and just get on with the job in hand! In fact I was so uplifted that I wrote to the letters page and thanked Ms Zadok for rescuing me! How well I can identify with her pain, her sense of loss, her period of almost mourning.

I guess something just had to give soon. Sarah the Publisher called me last week and asked if I was okay. I have been so quiet and elusive, she said, that she thought I'd fallen out of the bottom of the world! She was right of course, I really had. I could not seem to focus, I could not commit myself, I could not write. In ten weeks or so, all I have managed is half a dozen haiku, one poem, two blogs and a dozen or so journal entries. That is an appalling record for someone who, once upon a time, could sit down and rattle off three thousand words in a day, every single day, until something was finshed. Twelve years ago I wrote a 75 0000 word novel in something like six weeks. When I was even younger I used to literally finish one book and start the next.

So the question just begs to be asked - what went wrong? What happened? Oh I could of course (and actually did, too, if I am not mistaken) blame any number of external distractions. I wasn't well. Hubby wasn't well. Cat wasn't well. Mother was in hospital. Gay Friend's parents' house was burgled. The weather was too hot, cold, wet, bright, overcast, windy. The country is sliding into economic chaos. The world is on the brink of depression. I got stung by some stinging nettles. I had to sit and watch A Touch of Frost, or Merlin or a DVD. I had a headache, an earache, a toothache, a brain-ache. I hated writing. I loved writing. I was a writer. I wasn't a writer. I was a bloody pain in the arse!

In truth I could search from now until the next millenium for a reason and not actually find a single one that had any real clout. It was just me. It was Me all the time. Silly, dotty, dopey little old Me. Well not anymore. Not now. My best work is yet to come and in order for it to come, I will find the time, meet other writers, make sure I start thinking like a writer again. I hereby wage war of Writer's Block! I proclaim to all and sundry that Now is My Time.

So thank you Rachel Zadok. And thank you Mslexia. And thank you Blog-Buddies. Now I move forward with confidence.

I'll just go and make myself a cuppa first ......