Today I have nothing to talk about because I’m Getting Creative. Oxymoronic? Well, yes. Everything goes inward and the mind rambles. For instance, in the false starts that began this post, all mercifully deleted, my mind wandered on the following topics: Bill Nighy, Facebook, Goodreads, Voldemort, grammar, Judging the Big Contest That Shall Not Be Named, lunch, houseplants, and back to Bill Nighy.

I really like Bill Nighy.

But this Getting Creative thing: What do I want to do next, what might sell (I’m clueless), what will stop me getting bored. This time around I’m approaching from the opposite direction to my usually haphazard process. I’m planning. I will be messing with file cards and diagrams and pencil scribbles. I might actually get to know characters before I pluck their names out of the air and drop them into a story.

And I have the books to read for the Contest That Shall Not Be Named. I have a clutch of books I’ve never even heard of and even though it’s only a handful it reminds me how many thousands of books are out there and how easy it is for a good book to be overlooked. This is a scary, inexplicable business.

I’m happy to mention, though, that I’ve done some things I decided on at the beginning of the year: I went to the National Gallery in Washington DC to see the exhibit The Pre-Raphaelite Lens which I enjoyed. I started tidying my office. I started thinking about getting ready to tidy the house. I might, even, gasp, sort out my books and decide which ones I really am never going to look at ever again to make more space (and not buy again).

So I pose a challenge to you: track your thoughts and see where they go, as I did at the beginning of this post, and see what you can come up with.