Pity parties, most of us have attended them, indeed a fair few of us have hosted them.

Not big brave or indeed constructive – but still we go…

2020 has been a bit of a rutty road, a byway in need of drastic resurfacing, not just for me, but for many others too.

Echo culture is a dangerous corrosive environment, when all you hear back are the comments you shout out, you can validate nothing.

Topography returned what I gave, and what I was giving wasn’t positive, was nowhere near being constructive – so it was no real surprise that it was all I heard echoing back to me!

Cabin fever had me, isolation removed the much-needed reaffirming validation that we all need, the corrosive insular cycle fed itself, devoured itself, almost destroyed itself and me with it.

A leather warped foot connects, and the scales fall from your eyes, you are no longer the trapped blind fool listening to the whispers and echoes of doubt.

You see, you see the beauty that you had for so long ignored.

Self-indulgence is a privilege of the living – and against the living is the debt from the dead to live.

So, missive over, have we made a point, articulated a clear theme?

I hope so.

Grip the shoulders, shake vigorously and then hug with all the love and passion that you possess.

Fall seven – stand eight!

It could be innumerable things, it could be the latest rejection – it could be, but it’s probably not. 

It could be Covid-19, but it isn’t. 

I know what it isn’t, even if I don’t know exactly what ‘it’ is.

Fellow scribblers probably now this intangible ‘it’, some may have a name for it, some a colour, others possibly leave it unnamed so as to hopefully not summon this intangible beast from its lair…

Avoidance is probably a sound strategy.

But for me it’s too late.

It’s been here, it’s still here…

Focus is hard, additional word count minimal – distractions prevalent!

Like a receding tide so my tale progresses.

Canute could not command the waves, and currently neither can I.

Energy is invested, then somehow just washed away.

Ideas flourish but are not nurtured.

We have a woman talking to a fairy, a fairy sitting comfortably in her handbag, yet this mine of possibilities isn’t being plundered?!

I have Nemeses converging on a singular timeline, yet…

Maybe I need a break from it all – possibly.

A change is as good as a rest – I’ll take both, maybe after a break my Mojo will rise again?

Who knows?

Stay sane – keep safe!

The power of words don’t take it for granted!

So it says on the t-shirt, and so the man sings.

Words, much more than clothes maketh the man. 

And of course, words without deeds are just that – meaningless platitudes.

Take a bow St James!

I have to admit that I’d never heard of ‘furlough’ until this whole lockdown thing started – had no idea of it in either concept or operation, I do now.

Is any of this relevant?

It is, and indeed it is a distraction too.

2020 for so many folks has been a peculiar year on so many levels.

Plans, best laid good intentions, all it seems have come to naught.

Of that I am guilty.

It’s not been writers block, but my writing has been blocked.

I have been ill – but not that ill that I couldn’t type.

I’m looking at a picture of the Shatt Al Arab Hotel and musing – not relevant to this muse, but it is.

Adversity introduces a man to himself (apparently).  

Focus has been lacking.

Lacking so much it’s been totally absent.

Not a proud statement, but an honest one.

Rejections have arrived – and yes, they suck.

I have been focused on editing unfinished works, rather than pushing the story forward, and it shows!

Amy has become a cast aside lover, not while I pursue another, but forgotten because I’ve just stopped chasing… 

Where do we go from here?

Is this the end?

Is this the whimper that the world dies by?

No, nothing as melodramatic.

Fall seven, stand eight!

Vent the spleen, articulate your frustrations – even if incoherently.

And that boys and girls is the whole point of the big empty dark auditorium.

Sins committed here, in this context, are anonymous.

So self-indulgent narcissism is the only way.

I need to write – so write I must.

With due apologies to Shelly “Shake your chains to earth like dew, which in sleep had fallen on you – Your words needing written are many – excuses, they are few.’