I am very pleased to be able to tell you that I have made a start on my new story.
I have written the first two thousand words, which is not a lot, but it is always the hardest bit to write of any story. It takes two thousand words before you can start to feel a story, and ideas start to come through easily, like warming up a pan of curry and rice that has been in the fridge. At first it is stiff and unyielding, and you have to break it up with the wooden spoon, but after a while it softens, and before very long it is bubbling away quite cheerfully.
I stopped writing at an interesting bit. This is always an important thing to do. I have got to stop at a bit where I am absolutely longing to get the next bit down, otherwise I don’t want to start again. If I stop at an interesting bit then coming to write more is a nice thing instead of a tiresome chore.
I am pleased about it. The story has been simmering away for ages. I am not exactly sure where it is going to finish yet, but that is what makes writing a story interesting. There is no point in writing a story when you know all about it before you start. It has got to be full of surprises.
I have not wasted all day writing a story. I took the dogs out on the fell this morning, and then afterwards we went over to the farm for some more firewood. I can’t collect very much at once because it is only the back of my taxi, not a trailer, and also I am trying not to make the taxi filthy and full of sawdust before I go to work.
The wood is buried under several layers of plastic weighted down by enormous chunks of logs, and is beautifully dry. I had filled the back of the taxi, so that it was piled high above the back seats, which you should not do, and was just thinking that there was a lot of sawdust blowing about in the very icy wind, when I realised that it was actually snow.
The dogs were belting around and barking at it like complete buffoons, and I dragged the plastic back over the remainder of the logs and set off back.
The dogs ran behind the taxi for the first mile or so. They seem to like doing this, I can’t imagine why. When we are on the way to the farm, when we turn off down the quiet roads with no other traffic and I can stop to let them out, they start barking their heads off and scrabbling at the inside of the boot to make sure that I don’t accidentally forget that I am a dog owner, and that there are two dogs in the boot who would like to be released into the wild.
They ran for miles, and we had already been over the fell. I had to keep driving faster, because they kept catching me up. They are absolutely fast asleep now. They came home and were not at all interested in helping me to unload. They collapsed on their cushion in front of the fire whilst I got on with it by myself.
The snow had stopped by the time we got home, and had turned into a grim, sleety rain. I was not sorry that I had got plenty of firewood. It is going to be a chilly weekend.
I am working, obviously. It is very quiet, and worse, it is very quiet with lots of taxis. It is very quiet in the week but at least I am by myself and if a customer does appear, then they are mine, but at weekend I have got to share them with everybody else.
I don’t mind all that much.
I have got a story to think about.
