THE WAY WE GET BY

I'm working on a university assignment today. I have to write a short story. Fiction. Those 3000 words have been hanging over my head for months, along with the weight and pressure I create for myself - wanting to do my best. But the truth about this assignment is that I'm scared. I get lost in stories everyday. They change my life all the time, they cause me to long for new places, to find like minded friends in pressed pages and to begin to notice the world through the eyes of another. And in my deepest longing and hopes to create those same feelings for another, I end up running away from my pencil and paper instead of delving straight in.

Fear must be one of the worst set backs I've experienced as an adult. It's a war I'm trying to step a little more up the plate on lately - rediscovering the determination to overcome. This journey is slow, but it's one I'm glad I'm on.

Right now I'm in that 'first-eighth of a book stage' with a few stories, still deciding which to jump fully into first. One is John le Carre's 'The Spy Who Came in from the Cold'. Another is James Wolcott's 'Lucking Out: My Life Getting Down and Semi-Dirty in Seventies New York'. Ever since we came back from overseas at the start of the year, I keep revisiting parts of America through the eyes of those who have made a life there.

What words can do, well it's truly amazing.

P.S. Here's some of our washing. Cleaning it and folding it has become one of my favourite Tuesday tasks. Hope you're having a lovely Tuesday, what are you reading lately?