Another excuse for not writing

My first and best excuse for not writing recently has been World Book Day. Check out my last post on this blog, and also my most recent post on the website, here, for where I’ve been, what I’ve been up to, and some of how it looked.

My other excuse is that, of the two stories swirling round in my head, I haven’t been sure which one to write. One of the handy things about meeting hundreds of girls and boys, lots of librarians and a few booksellers over the last few days is that I’ve been able to ask their opinion. Good news – they like both stories. Bad news – they want me to write both, which isn’t super-helpful right now. However, they want me to write one slightly sooner than the other, so I think I know what I’m doing now.

Also, I’ve been quite distracted over the last couple of days thinking about the characters for the slightly-favourite story, and the setting, and just exactly who is going to die and how … and that’s always a good sign. I think if I don’t sit down and write the story, it will just write itself in my head anyway, like Threads did, so I might as well get it on the computer while it’s there.

My other other excuse for the not-writing has been fish.

2 goldfish.

As named by my 7 year-old, who has not, sadly, inherited his mother’s fascination with names. If I’d been him, I’d have called them Captain Rex and Commander Cody (obviously), but he wasn’t convinced. He’s gone for Goldie and Fishie. (One is gold, and one is … fishy.) So there we go.

I LOVE THEM! I haven’t had fish since Bit and Bot when I was 7 (OK, so I wasn’t quite so into names then either) and I’d forgotten how mesmerising they are. Goldie is the big bruiser – not super-intelligent, but very fond of his food. Indeed. Fishie is the clever little Artful Dodger of the team, always the first to spot new fish flakes, and the most agile round the tank.

When they’re hungry, they swim super-slow, conserving their energy and looking like sharks on the prowl. Very very small sharks on the prowl among plastic scenery. When it’s feeding time, they go for it. They’re up, they’re down, they’re in and out of the greenery, they’re eating the stones at the bottom and anything that might possibly be food attached to the glass of the aquarium. Fishie gets there first, then Goldie follows.

As you can tell, I’ve been watching them for hours.

When I haven’t been watching them, or in schools talking, or daydreaming about stories, I’ve been listening to the radio, and walking in the spring sunshine, and reading other people’s blogs. I’ve discovered Fleur Hitchcock, who seems to do the sort of things I do and like the sort of things I like. I recommend you check out her writing blog here. It’s brilliant! I think the new debate about how we have a human need to make things is really important. Fleur describes that so well.

But I must get to work now. There’s a boy in my head who, quite unfortunately, needs to die …