Brain mice and thought cheese

I find myself having to coax concentration from my brain, like someone coaxing mice into a trap.  Hence the title of this blog.  You thought I was losing it, didn't you, go on, admit it.  You thought I just typed random words in the attempt to lure people into reading this, but that's just silly, if I did that then the title would be Boscombe tuna leaf weather, which in itself is a pretty good title but it doesn't really mean.... Hey!  It happened again!

Ooh, nice shoes.

I can't help it, my mind wanders.  I start off with a good idea and suddenly I remember that I've got to wash the car and where did I put that suet, and then the phone rings and next thing I know it's Boscombe tuna leaf weather again.  I make lists, you know.  Lots of lists.  And one day I'll find where I keep putting them. I'll open a cupboard and be hit with all the things I should have done over the past twenty years, and every one of those lists will start  'Put On Trousers'.  I'd be an absent minded professor if I hadn't kept forgetting to go to my science classes, so I decided the only thing to do was to become a writer, because you're allowed to be absent minded if you're a writer and besides, if you work at home you don't have to worry about forgetting your trousers.  And, as a plus, I also work in a science department where everyone ELSE is absent minded and probably wouldn't notice if I did forget my trousers.  They'd probably just ask me where I got those woolly pink tights from.  Until I explained that those were my legs.

Perhaps my mind is just too full.  Yes, that will be it.  I'm so full of good ideas and interesting thoughts for writing that I've got no room left for proper thinking.  Which is why I can't remember my own phone number or what I had for lunch but I can remember the total plotline for my latest work in progress, plus the heroine's entire life history.  Yes, that's it.  I'm too busy being a genius to think about real life...

Oooh, nice shoes.

This is my brain.  On a good day.  On a bad day, there's less cheese.

I have an Idea...

There I was, prancing along through my day wearing a snappy yet carefree little outfit and with my hair blowing in the breeze (if you need a picture just watch any fabric softener commercial), when I was asked 'where do you get your ideas from?'  And there was me desperate for something to blog about - well, it was like a gift!

Actually, I get my ideas from a little shop in York, fifty pee each or a dozen for a fiver, which I think is quite a bargain.  Some of them even come with 'user's tips' like 'don't feed after midnight' or 'worse than anybody's aunt', which are handy.  Why I use this shop is anyone's guess, for ideas are like litters of kittens; everywhere, free to good homes and often arrive when you least expect them because your cat is called Rambo and eats Rotweilers.

All you need to catch these ideas is a brain like a net with very small holes, and all writers are already in possession of these.  A writer's brain lets very little escape, except possibly the exact time of the last train or what it was that you originally came into the room for.

 All sorts of things become enmeshed in the..err... mesh, and quite a lot of these will turn into stories if left unattended.  Who knows when that snippet that you overheard on the bus about the best way to make black pudding might come in handy?  So anyone interested in becoming a writer is well advised to go about their daily business with their brain set to 'trawl' and to take note of anything which sticks to the back of the net.  Some of my best ideas have come from misheard song lyrics, partially heard conversations and the interesting images you see when you are peering through binoculars at those very odd people in Number 39.

So, if you think of writers and the image of a Grimsby fishing boat comes to mind, don't be alarmed, it's perfectly natural.  If, on the other hand, when you think of writers you find yourself thinking about well-filled fishnet tights...well, that's not my fault and you probably need to get out more.  Try a bracing walk.  And stop taking those metaphors.

Blogging on blogging.

Right, brace yourselves people.  Today sees a double-helping of me.  Which either makes you very, very lucky or completely damned without redemption, but I'm choosing to see it as the former.

I was summoned to the blog of Choc Lit (those fragrant and special people I believe I may have mentioned, probably in CAPITAL LETTERS already), to give my viewpoint on the current state of my mind.  Oh, come on, they did ask...  I managed to produce what I consider to be a cogent and altogether enlightening window into my writing experience, and also a much lovelier photo than the one which is going to curse their author pages for many moon to come.  Mostly because it's not entirely of me, but also features Dog Number One, who in aforementioned photo is staring at the ground with a somewhat rabid expression but still manages to look better than I do.

Anyway.  Where was I? Oh yes, blogging.  Now I find myself blogging about blogging, which is probably something recursive, and if anyone out there finds themself blogging about my blog about blogging then you will probably disappear up your own HTML, and don't expect us to come looking for you if you're not back by tea-time.  So.  Go and have a look at my Choc Lit blog (it's all right, now I've warned you about the picture you can make sure you're looking somewhere else when that scrolls past, but for the love of God, have an empty stomach when you open the page, or an old blanket to throw over the screen, or something).  The other girls all have something interesting to say, and all I can do is to compare being published with the time a mouse ran up my trouser leg.  They will probably never ask me again.

On a lighter note, I've just opened a box of chocolates that I was given for Mother's Day.  And if you think that is odd, I've still got a box from Christmas, unopened!  But I'm keeping those in case of emergency.  You never know (as I have previously proved) when a mouse is going to run up your trousers and necessitate the opening of a large box of Thorntons.