Cactus is our friend

Came to my desk early in the afternoon, pulled up a fresh Word page, sat down, spat neatly on the palms of both hands and gave them a good rub. The sentences were clear in my head. This week’s blog was bubbling and brewing – boy, was I going to out-do myself, or what?

Then three things happened, and I can’t remember in which order. I remember talking on the phone long-distance with my daughter in Ireland. I remember cleaning out the rabbit hutch … lovely job, that. I remember making the most delicious roast chicken dinner you could possibly imagine. I remember picking my son up from work. I remember giving the place a bit of a tidy up.

Do I ever remember having dinner!

I also remember doing the kitchen (my daughter’s in Ireland, remember?), feeding the cat, and giving the rabbit the vegetable peelings (yes, that is one spoilt rabbit).

And the blog went the way of all else. Boy, is Hise going to be mad. Madder than last week when I forgot to insert my byline and mug. [Like you wouldn’t know it was me, with all those long sentences and crazy semicolons.]

Gone. Phhhfft! Cactus. I had this perfect article, all philosophical, no less, with references, in-text citations and Latin quotations. A bit like the sermons my old man might have written if he were a pastor (but the old folks were Catholic, see?) A bit like the courtroom wind-ups he might have written if he ever found his pen. He winged it a lot.

Here I am, minding my own business, a chip off the old block, having forgotten every last word I was going to say: winging it. (Wow – see that? A whole colon.) This often happens to me in the tail third of a novel. All the charge goes out, and the darkness descends, and I have NO IDEA how I was going to build that climax, never mind the DE-NOUE-MENT.

So you wing it. You leave off the highbrow philosophizing, the extractions and abstractions from classical literature, the showing off of history of art and architecture, and you tell it like it is, because you can’t remember how it was, when it was all in your head and it was perfect, drattit.

And it all came from a line out of one song – a perfect lyric. Now if I could remember which song, you’d have a perfect blog, wouldn’t you, and everyone would be happy and go home edified.

Wait a minute … is there a song about taking a camel to bed? Was that it? Yeah – gottit. Oh – my word limit’s up. Oops. Oh yeah, oh yeah… can I have ten more?

You don’t have to answer

There’s no need to speak

*  *  *  *  *

Rosanne Dingli has authored three novels, several collections of short stories and poetry, and literally hundreds of articles, reviews, blog posts, columns, features, and stories. Her newest novel, Camera Obscura, deals with visual arts such as photography and painting. For more about Rosanne Dingli, visit her website, or her blog. You may manage your subscription options from your profile.