Try turning life off and on again.

Work (ie boring day-job work) has completely taken over at the moment, and, despite the best of intentions, have not written anything for over a month. (You A-Zers? How do you do that?)  The first draft has been rattling at the drawer, demanding attention, but I have simply been too busy and / or too tired, lost in a rut of my own making.  Without making light of it, I think S.A.D. may have had us all in it's melancholy grip lately whilst we await the return of spring.

However, Spring finally put it's foot in the door. and I got an unexpected day off this week, my first in ages, and took myself 'up-town' for a mooch around the galleries.  Hell, it's free, the only benefit to civilisation modern democracy has brought.
The background noise that is real life only ever goes away if I'm writing, or standing rapt in front of a work that really reaches into me. On this occasion, it was 'Turf Cutters' by Thomas Wade, a rather discreet, dark work, almost lost on a wall full of Pre-Raphaelite colour and fantasy.  But it whispered to me, reminding me of the tales of hardship and toil that my parent's generation still tell with such pride.  And it shone a light on the ease of my life now.
Anyway, I was happily lost for half an hour sketching, remembering, re-connecting.  Reset button pressed.

And, as a result of this meditation, the Swiss-cheese that was the plot to novel one, is slowly maturing into a firmer, more robust cheddar. (To continue the cheese analogy, I'm sure that by next week the mice of doubt will have nibbled it back into a holy mess.)

But the drawer is open.  I'm going in.....................