January is the moanyiest of months...

It's the fag end of January, the last of the late Christmas cards has plopped onto the mat, all of the cheese and chocolate has been scoffed and every single one of my new year's resolutions has been abandoned in favour of a hopeful, catch all 'will do better' crie de coeur.

Nothing much new has leapt out in front of me in recent weeks and if I keep this level of whining up, I'll be nominated by friends and family for the Moany Old Cow of the Year award. I've already had a couple of concerned calls and emails in response to a recent string of facebook status updates. They'd be mobilising the national guard if I was in the habit of writing what I really feel like day to day...

Today my true status would read:  

"On the way to 49, feeling sick & dizzy as my life rushes past me. Help"

Is there a direct causal link between the increasing size of my backside and the shrinking aspiration of my social life? I use the word aspiration advisedly. When I was younger, I used to long for glittering parties, gorgeous, beboob-tubed pals in slingbacks and stretchy skirts to go out with and drive sexy looking, rich chaps bonkers as we skipped by in a haze of Opium and cheap liquour.

Now what I want, what I really really want - is a decent cuppah and maybe a chocolate hobnob... and if I must go out then I want a cab - paid for both ways and a seat when I get there! Yes I bloody well do.

After a bit more planning this week, I will begin a new writing project - which will start proper on my 49th Birthday - 13th February - thanks for asking...  I was always secretly disappointed that my mother didn't clamp her legs shut for a few more hours, so romantic to be born on Valentines Day.

Still I do like to imagine the postman thinks me very popular, and apparently childbirth isn't a matter of applying will power. I wouldn't know, I've never been in the family way - another thing to ponder in Moanyary!

Cold feet, warm heart | excuses excuses excuses ...

I'm forgiving myself for not turning up at the blog often in the last few weeks. I have been writing, just not creatively and not specifically for Shoboome. This isn't meant to be an excuse, it's just how it is. So for now - please find a new shoe shot, by way of apology. These are my most loved shoes from United Nude. Bought for me by my beloved Podge when we were freezing in New York a few years ago. They go with nothing and I wear them with everything.

read on for some more writing prompts ...

Oh the weather outside is frightful
Lots of writers just sit down and get on with it, I am one of those procrastinating curs. Which is why I started this little blog in the first place - in an attempt to create a structure that would support me to write every day as well as sharing some of the process. True to form, I started off ok - but more recently I spend a lot of my time writing piffle elsewhere.

My current excuses revolve around how bloody cold I am, and how uninspiring I find the constant battle against holes in the roof of our crumbling Victorian terrace, ice on the inside of the hideous reworked bay window panes and freezing, I mean 'can't feel them mother' freezing, cold feet. The effort it takes to not be miserable about the endless coughing, sneezing and snotting up of hankies like a dying consumptive - uses up all my available push...

I am a whining, moaning, groaning, sniff monster.

but the fire is so delightful ...
So it's off to very good friend Kath's for supper and a much needed, reset tonight. Struggling is all very well for some creative types, it just doesn't work for me. I need a cuddle, a good talking too and some double glazing.

If you get stuck you could try some writing exercises or do what I do - just write about why your not writing. It might sound a bit daft but it's important to a) face into your block b) write and c) get over it! Lets all pull our Christmas stockings up shall we?

Five prompts for Christmas

• 10 things to do with a paperclip | no stopping - GO!
• Woke up this morning ... | finish this classic blues line and keep on going ...
• What's the best dump line you've ever heard? (mine is: 'Bitter? I'm not bitter... THIS is bitter!' cue pint tiped over his head, and flouncy walk out. Oh yes I did!).
• There's an alien in my loft - what am I going to do? 
• I'm putting off writing because... (keep writing until you get to the real truth of the matter)

A useful link

http://www.theshortstory.org.uk/magazines/index.php4

RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms

HorAce and Jemimina meet the Queen..

Not so very long ago in a land far fetched there lived a pair of tiny teeny hippopotameenie. Which all clever and right thinking people large and small know is the official word for more than one hippopotomouse. That's TERRUUE! We shall often call them micro hippos for short.ly.

Horace and Jemimina find a home

It's Children in Need day today, so I'll be back later with a little story about Horace and Jemimina our imaginary micro hippos, just for fun. Do something silly for Pudsey right now and while you're giggling share your good fortune with those children in need around the UK and the world - hug your brood closer, embarrass them with too much cuddling and then donate some cash a quid will be great twenty quid would be better.

We are the lucky ones.

Shoe love - Winter Blues combatage

Latte & green 'gator Ted Baker platforms! on Twitpic