Coffee!

That is why I am writing my blog at 2.00am - I have been wanting to write properly all week - but haven't had the energy or have been too tired, now perversely at this time in the morning my mind is clear, and I am full of oojah-cum-spiff and so on.

Whether I have anything useful to say is another question.  Some forms of writing have become a displacement activity for other, more difficult, forms of writing.  Which is why I have been blogging consistently, but when I turned to my last bit of Conscience I found it was written on July 15th, just before the school holidays started.   Of course I can blame the Summer Squall and the school holidays for that.  Anyway, I finally sat down to write some more on September 8th, and was extremely delighted to write 1600 words in a session (this is a Barbara Cartland level of productivity that will probably result in writing of equal value to hers).  The following day, thinking at this rate I might achieve 3,000 words a week I sat down and in two begrudging sessions managed to squeeze out another 400 plus words.  Well, that's 2,000 anyway, and the week isn't finished yet.

Why am I not writing it now?   Oh because, I am enjoying having them all steam in anticipation of a Christmas party... I have been trying to find out what sort of dances they did - waltzes, fox trots? two-steps?  Don't know - is that more American... Schottisches were all the rage in late 19thC - but did it carry on to 1915?  But too early for the Charleston/Shimmy/Black Bottom etc.

Sometimes the internet is wonderful for research, sometimes it is frankly appalling... maybe I should put in English ballroom dancing and see what it will tell me about the era...

The trouble is, I still can't make Daniel really in love with Kitty - because I don't like her.... he obviously does, he feels a whole lot of ludicrous things about her - or what he imagines she's like.  I unfortunately know what she's like.  I think I've said this before, what I ought to do is imagine a J & M scenario - misguidedly falling for unsuitable woman because he's lonely and she's available, and having all sorts of chivalrous feelings about her - but I can't turn J into Daniel - because Daniel, well, he's not the type.  A misjudging Neptunian is Daniel... trapped in a web of his own romanticism (although I'm not sure if I've made that clear) - and perhaps I'm not good at doing men who are romantics, because I've seldom been involved with a fellow romantic... maybe, like introverts and extroverts they don't inter-marry... perhaps Keith was a romantic - but usually about his own past.  I suppose some of those Virgoan nostalgic types might have been - urrrgh. 

I am wondering if I had had a blog in 2009 whether I would have written The Formative Year?  It would have been so easy to spiel it all out here...

At the moment I am beginning to diet again, not in a very serious way, cutting back the carbs etc.  but it is not working.  I think I must stop drinking this time as well.  Under the affluence of incohol tonight I ate a pizza, because I was making them for everyone else, and there was some dough left, and it saved me having to wash up and deal with other forms of cooking.  It was a slightly penitential pizza since I put too much artichoke on it, because we'd run out of decent olives.  Should have stuck to anchovies and mozarella and the v. good tomato sauce I made.

Was there a point to this blog?  I was coming to that...

I had a bit of a pray about my diet/weight/size/health - said I really wanted to be thin, did not want to take up M's suggestion of baryatric surgery... would I ever get thin?  And heard  Three years.   That was encouraging, because I know I could be thin in three years if I stuck to it - roughly.   It is easier to stick to it now I think, especially since when I do eat carby foods - like tonight's pizza - I feel deadly dopey afterwards, and my mind does not function well.  I don't like that at all.  But I do need to do some exercise.

I was also praying about the writing, because I am convinced that Conscience will be taken up (good story, true story, set in WWI - centenary coming up, well written etc.) and published, but I am a bit sad for The Formative Year because it is very lovely in its way.  So a couple of days later, thinking about that "will it ever be published?"  I heard two years.   So that's rather cheering, because these voice of God things tend to be right.  (OK - all the rationalists have now fainted - but revive please, and pay attention).  I am perfectly clear that what I call the voice of God or the Holy Spirit may very well not be, but culturally it is coherent with other people's experience of the Holy Spirit - not everyone hears an inner voice, some people experience it in other ways.  The fact is the Holy Spirit (if you will allow me to call it that, as it is my cultural tradition to do so) will tell you where your keys are, or when you will find them... when I lost my keys recently I heard soon, the following day I heard tomorrow, and finally, the day I found them I heard today.  This is not remarkable, because there is this helpful voice intermittently in my head, when I really need to know something.  But it won't tell me everything - and is silent on matters dear to my evil heart... It is a comforting voice - in accordance with its name The Comforter - it doesn't speak much, just a few short words; it is the still small voice that speaks out of the whirlwind of one's fears, passions and anxieties, and it says things like It will be all right.   I could give endless examples of when it has helped me, that night on the M20 for example - a really scarey time in the snow, it helped me get off the road - if I hadn't I would have been stuck above Folkestone with the lorries all night.

To people who hate religion, I say, ignore religion, cultivate a relationship with God - ask him for the Holy Spirit and get help... forget about the power of the Vatican, childmolesting, boring chapel or assemblies, or whatever it is that annoys you about organised religion, just cultivate God - get to know God - speak together, listen, learn...

If I were going to write a list of things which annoyed me about Richard Dawkins it would fill this blog, but I think if I felt he was someone who had ever tried to make contact with God - and had somehow failed, I might be able to sympathise with him.  What I most dislike is the sense that God and anything to do with God is so beneath his mighty intellect that he wouldn't deign to humble his brain to do that.  I think the brain is an amazing part of God's evolved creation... and part of its amazingness is its ability to let us hear God - to be in touch with God. 

OK - that's enough God!  Well, probably for the readership anyway. Was that the point of this blog? Probably.