Blog Envy ?

... further to my earlier post ... Ive just looked again at Neil's post and found myself envious of the fact that he had a comment from "Dana", advising him to join a writers forum online , and wondering whether anyone will ever leave me a comment . Then I notice Tim has left me a comment after all .. Thanks Tim .....and of course D left me one about his legs and the GP s .

blogging , the blogosphere etc

Just been reading Neil's blog ( http://www.marketingmynovel.blogspot.com/) and thinking what we have in common bloggowise . There are some similarities .... we are both writers at heart , most content with pen in hand , or in my case laptop in situ , probably both using writing as the ultimate displacement activity . Everyone has their favourite( DA) , and in fact it was Michaela who first introduced me to the concept as she described sitting in her mother's bedroom applying layers and layers of make up simply to avoid having to revise for her finals . Mostly folks seem to do "things " in order to avoid having to write , washing the car instead of writing a report being one I was quoted recently ( personally Id rather write the report , all that soapy water up the arms and reaching over a damp bonnet whilst standing in a puddle of soap ) but generally I guess I find writing the ideal reason for generally not just getting on with life , which always seems to me a thing I'd rather think about today and do tomorrow instead .
Driving home today with a literature proramme on radio four I heard numerous novels discussed , including Metamorphosis ( Franz Kafka , I thinkFranz Kafka's THE METAMORPHOSIS adapted by Peter Kuper ) which I read in school , Therese Raquin ( Emile Zola )National Theatre : Productions : Thérèse Raquin and another French novel which I read at A level ( cant remember now ). All this took me back to the books I used to read in my twenties when I was single and as a means of finding things to do after work ( I used to have energy then ) attending courses in French literature with the Workers Education Association and the like . A group of us would meet every week and talk about the latest book , a bit like book groups now ( something Ive never managed to get myself into , for various reasons ), only I suspect we did it in a more academic way as the group teacher would usually be a teacher or lecturer and very serious about it all too . My image of book groups includes a host or hostess , a sitting room in neutral colours and copious drafts of wine , possibly . Ive always secretly envied participants but never quite been able to commit . I digress . The radio took me back , and made me think , I could do that again . Join a group , do a course , read books to order instead of in a slightly sloppy what's next on the pile at the side of the bed kind of way , discarding one after a few lines when I take against it in a fit of pique , picking up another and throwing it back if it doesnt immediately suit . No discipline . I could do a course and discipline myself literarily . Discipline myself in all sorts of ways . Go back to my old habits of cleaning every week , shopping on Thursdays , swim every morning , walk every night etc etc .
But , and this was the point of all this , writing provides the perfect excuse to think about all these ideas , including revelling in the idea of the numerous possibilities whilst in fact putting off taking action until tomorrow as somehow writing has to come first .

Both Neil and myself started writing in support of something else . In his case , to promote his novel and get people interested in downloading a free copy of his book at http://www.lulu.com/ , or even buying a nice bound and proper looking book with a Greek scene on the cover . Excellent for the summer hols ( summer ? what summer ? Still at least its not flooding here and we have mains water and power still . Well apart from my sister Laura who rarely has water but thats a long story ) .And in my case to get people to look at the CatCalls website . In both cases we seem to have a growing following of readers and in my case thats become reason in itself .........