Switching Off

There are times after I have spent a day writing when it seems impossible to switch off my head. Words, words, words: forming and reforming until they are driving me mad.

Thank heavens then for Tom Barnaby and his merry team - Midsome Murders is one of the few programmes on television that actually help you to relax. So, just how would you describe this series? This is off the top of my head but I think I would say it is accessible, bizarre, colourful, dramatic, entertaining  fun, genial, humourous, improbable, jolly, kinky, laughable, merry, nonsensical, obvious, quaint, risible, scenic, trite, undemanding, vivid, extraordinary and zany.

Sorry there is no 'Y' (if you can think of one, please let me know) and I cheated a bit with 'X'.

Now Reading

Once I am writing - rather than planning or researching - finding the right things to read becomes very difficult. Poetry and biographies fill the addiction for the written word but novels by good writers either fill me with despair and envy or absorb me so completely that I 'lose the plot' with my own work! Hurrah then for Michael Mayne's Learning to Dance. What an amazing book I have just finished the first section, 'January', and I simply love the opening quote from Alexander Pope......

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,

As those move easiest who have learned to dance.