So, it’s Monday morning and it’s raining. I feel quite sleep deprived after not getting enough sleep last night. I opened up the laptop to play with words for a while and came across a file labelled 1hour challenge, I opened the file to see what words of wisdom I had come up with during this previous challenge, but it opened to an empty file… I think whatever I found to write must have been saved under an apt title, leaving this file empty to fill again. So here we go…

But where to start? So far I’ve gazed around me, watching one of my muses walk into the kitchen, sit down and start to wash his tabby coat, I’ve also put the kettle on and made myself a hot drink, such are the distractions that tempt me away from tapping away at the keys and seeing where the words take me. I’m starting to feel like a character from my doodle series, now if I was writing with pen or pencil on paper I could do a little doodle, but that only caused more trouble for Eric, when Iver No-Idea started ripping words off the page and throwing them at him, so maybe that isn’t my answer.

I think my real problem is that I’m being held hostage by my books. I pour all my imagination into writing a book, then I change mind set and format the book ready to publish and all the while ideas for promoting the books are buzzing around in my head. But then when the time arrives to put my marketing hat on all the imaginative ideas run for cover. I can hear them muttering amongst themselves about holding out to go in the next book, none of them want to be part of my marketing campaign. I think they’re afraid that they will be distilled down into keywords and lose their natural flow.

So are doodles just a distraction for the mind, or are they a lure to tempt ideas out to play? That looks like a fun idea they probably think, I could go out and add the story to bring that picture alive…

I’ve just remembered some sketches I’ve been working on, doodles really, of books with faces, arms and legs, maybe these are the sort of doodles that could bring the illusive ideas out to play. But wait, that brings me back to a story I’ve been working on about the books coming alive and finding a way to escape their stock cupboard. The characters spill out of the books and it all gets quite chaotic, as books and book characters all have their own ideas of what to do next, everyone talking and nobody listening.   



So, despite various interruptions by people, animals and technology I’ve found this hour (who am I kidding, there were big interruptions and it wasn’t an hour) quite productive and therapeutic. And if I just prattle on a bit more I’ll reach 500 words!! YES!