I’m now on my 5th visit to the Dentist’s Chair. The whole tooth episode has been a complete nightmare. I don’t know why people undergo major gastric surgery or risk stomach stapling in a serious attempt to lose weight – just go and ask your dentist to put a couple of stitches in your gum. That should curb your appetite.
My social life has been severely affected – I’ve had to curtail my usual dizzy round of lazy lunches as I’m fed up with a diet of soup, soup and more soup. In addition with a face puffed up like an over-fed hamster I haven’t particularly felt like I want to step out of the apartment. In fact, I’ve only been venturing out for the barest of necessities (another tin of soup) and the school run of course.
The teenager and I have been having some precious mother-daughter bonding moments behind the wheel of the car on the school run. I was rather reluctant to let her learn to drive over here, anyone who reads this blog regularly will know that I don’t hold LA car drivers in any great esteem. Unlike back home where you happily pay a professional to teach your child to drive, here the onus is definitely on the parent to teach their offspring all they know. Say no more. Anyway, to her credit she is doing very well and definitely has more patience with American rules of the road than her mother.
Being housebound has also fired me up to finally get to grips with that novel. And yes I have been positively inspired. Without the added distraction of the husband who is currently in Saudi Arabia checking out the next stage of his major oil refinery construction project, I’ve been able to shut myself away and concentrate on producing a great work of literary art (aka a chick-lit). As any writer will tell you, once you get engrossed, even taking a break for a bite to eat is out of the question – which is perfect for me right now because I can’t eat anyway. The teenager is more than happy to spend every evening in solitary confinement plugged into her usual heady concoction of tumblr-facebook-homework-twitter, so I have been left entirely to my own devices.
It’s been absolutely wonderful. Chapters have been flying off the printer quicker than I can pop down to Office Max to pick up the next ream of paper. On a hasty trip to Target to buy a baby soft toddler toothbrush for my poor tender gums, I was so absorbed in trying to work out how to contrive the plot to get my two main characters back into bed together, that I returned home empty handed having left my toothbrush at the checkout. I expect Emily Bronte experienced exactly the same problem.
That's the wonderful thing about writing - you can make your characters do whatever you want; so much easier to manipulate people on paper than it is in real life. My heroine can meet the man ofmy her dreams and live happily ever after, for a couple of chapters at least.
That's the wonderful thing about writing - you can make your characters do whatever you want; so much easier to manipulate people on paper than it is in real life. My heroine can meet the man of
Creative genius is a gift and we’re not always in control of it. According to my bible – Bestseller Writing for Beginners - the art of writing a good book is knowing when to stop. Well my stitches are out, I’m finally off to meet a friend for lunch, and the husband is due back from Saudi tomorrow. Probably about now then.
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