Greta Garble and the Great Cupcake Incident

I am Greta Garble at the moment. I can’t write! I just can’t. Every sentence I try looks at me as if I’m having a laugh. Read that back to yourself and weep, it says smugly, and when I do I realise I have spent an hour crafting a load of baloney.

If my novel was a pencil-top eraser it would now be worn to a sad sorry little stump. I can’t seem to stop revising and editing. It’s because I have decided to make some hefty changes and the very idea makes me want to howl at the moon. So it’s all an uphill struggle at the moment, but there are some things that make a difference.

1. Even if you only have time to write 200 words a day, that is 200 more than nothing
2. When everything is failing, say to yourself that you will only write to the end of the page. Taking off the pressure sometimes encourages creativity.
3. Remember that writing is what we choose to do and as much as it makes us want to tear our hair out, it’s also kind of lovely as well

Even writing a blog post feels kind of tricksy, like I am expecting it to lay in wait a paragraph down and trip up my fingers. Will I get over this strange feeling? It doesn't help that I have given up chocolate since the Great Cupcake Incident.

'What's that?' you say. 'The great cupcake whatta? Spill.'

Well. It was the other day. I was being Healthy and Good. I decided to go on a three-mile stride, as I rather like walking and thinking and plotting and admiring other people's gardens. I set out... and, despite good intentions, the only real place to walk around my area is away out of the borough towards a nice little tea shop.

I may have mentioned this nice little tea-shop before.

So I got there, Woman's Weekly Fiction Special magazine in hand, pen and notebook ready, determined that I was just going to have a coffee. I was lying to myself at this point as I knew full well I was going to have a chocolate cupcake and in fact all my plotting for the last 15 minutes of my walk had been completely cupcake orientated.

'We're having a sale,' chirruped the nice tea-shop lady. She wasn't a bird by the way. But she did chirrup somewhat. In a minute she'll carroll.

'All cakes half-price!' she carrolled.

Blogger buddies, I don't know what came over me. It was like the red velvet mist descended. Next thing I knew; I walked out of the tea shop with a box.

Yes. A box. A box of cupcakes.

I even did that thing in the shop where I pretended I was buying cakes for the family - 'oh mum will like this one and little brother Toby can have that one...'

(There is no little brother Toby. Toby was, in fact, a teddy-bear.)

Bad Jayne. However, my mum did get a cupcake eventually as even I, sugar fiend extraordinaire, can't eat a whole box of cupcakes.

There is a motto here and it probably should say something like if you are being Good and Healthy, avoid the chirrupy happy tea-shop lady. As for me? I'm now on a diet.

Snow Cats!

Abigail and Ginger are very curious about these bold white cats who have mysteriously taken up residence on the window ledge.

Sadly I have no pictures of the real Abigail and Ginger playing in the snow to share with you as the look they gave me when I tried to coax them outside would have withered Little Miss Sunshine. So instead let me take you on a little magical journey...

Down a road, not very far away, is a tea shop. It is the most wonderful tea shop ever, but the way to it had been blurred around the edges.



The news person on the television said 'Do not make any unnecessary journeys in the snow', but walking to a tea shop to eat a cupcake was suddenly deemed a very necessary journey to make. So the girl layered up until she was one foot taller and three foot wider, and set off down the road.

In her imagination she went this way...



...and fearlessly tracked snow leopards through jungles and fields...



In reality she walked along here - careful cars breaking the soft silence.



But it wasn't long before she was snugly tucked into her favourite seat, notebook open, tea brewing, and cupcake eaten.



You'd have to be as quick as a snow leopard to photograph this girl with a intact cupcake. But imagine the most loveliest red velvet cupcake - light, fresh, and just plain mmm-delicious, and you will know why the girl was smiling as she scribbled in her note-book.