The Wilderness

Forgive me WordPress for I have sinned. I have failed to blog on either of my sites for the longest time and I need to absolve myself.
I have excuses – going north for my graduation then rushing back to sea the following day. Being a bit under the weather when I came home and swallowed up by domestic life. – but understand that they don’t get me off the hook.

I am a bad blogger.

I think my biggest problem is that I am suffering the post-grad blues (now if that isn’t a song it should be) and feeling a bit lost. The course is over, I’ve moved clear across the country and now I am all alone in the wilderness of trying to push forward with my writing. I haven’t yet hooked up with anyone else around here that writes. Writing is a solitary business (solitude being something I’m fundamentally suited to) but it is helpful, inspiring and confidence boosting if there are people around that you can talk to over a latte in the bookshop café.
I will get over this hump in the road but, just for now, my writing is so blocked off that I haven’t wanted to open my laptop or even pick up a pen. I hope that this little post will break that bad spell and that I’ll be back at my desk in Shedward PDQ. If nothing else, I owe my nephew a photo-story about Kylie Wyoti’s Great Escape. It’s the sequel to Kylie Wyoti’s Big Adventure and I should have finished it a YEAR ago. Not only am I a bad blogger, I am a bad auntie too. How many Hail Mary’s does all that add up to?

 

Now What?

Well I did it. I passed the MA and that was great. Then I had to get dressed up in a funny outfit and collect my certificate. Gulp. Thankfully there was a sea of robes and mortar boards in the centre of Hull that day so I didn’t stand out.
Actually, for someone who prefers to stand at the back and avoid attention, I did enjoy myself. I saw Selina Scott being awarded her Honorary Doctorate and our university chancellor, Virginia Bottomley shook my hand and asked a few questions and I was very good and didn’t break out into an ancient Spitting Image joke about our once Prime Minister, John Major being in love with her. She asked me what I do for a living but all I could hear in my head was ‘John loves Ginny!’ Thankfully, I kept the words inside. You won’t understand any of that if you never saw Spitting Image but trust me, it was funny at the time.
Anyway I had to rush away to join a ship the following day so I haven’t really digested the whole experience. My Captain, though tells anyone who sets foot in the Bridge that I’ve got an MA now. Bless. Maybe he’s proud of me.
I did read the feedback on my dissertation last night (yes it has taken me that long to pluck up the courage). Mm, talk about damning with faint praise … Still I did pass. The question is, now what? How am I going to get my bum in the chair, my fingers on the keyboard and rework the novel to incorporate the criticism without a looming deadline. And will anyone really mind if I don’t?