I am lightheaded with joy and relief.  At last my novella is finished.  This is the one that got lost several times.  The one that I started last January and abandoned.  The one that turned out to be so long I thought I'd have to divide it in two.  The one I thought I could rewrite into a serial.  The one that I thought was terrible.
It wasn't.  It's bloody brilliant. 
Of course, one always thinks the most recent thing one writes is the best ever, so that feeling may go away, but for now:  I'm just going to run with it.  It's lovely.  It makes me remember why I'm a writer.  I created this thing, this story, out of absolutely nothing.  It has people.  They have lives.  They do things that have consequences.  And behind it all is a vast backstory that would take a million years to tell.
I love it.  I love being able to do this.  I think I might just actually take off and fly.
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The words "cold" and "London" don't often go together - not at the centre of London where I live, anyway.  But this morning it was COLD.  Deliciously cold!  It had rained so the ground was damp and fresh.  The sun came out and was brilliantly blinding.  And my face went quite numb.  God, it was lovely.  I love London like this.  It's so rare, like a precious jewel.  A diamond, in fact. 

I've been editing my new novella "Shattered."  It began life last January but I failed to finish it, a rare thing for me.  Got caught up in all those Neanderthal facts, which weren't, after all, very important in the end.  It's a bit patchy - some bits are bloody brilliant, others are rather weak and rushed, so I'm doing my best to fix it up.  I had hoped to published it this January, but it may take longer than I'd hoped to finish it.  Not that it matters.  It's not like there are hoards of people waiting for the next Exodus Sequence story.

But the combination of a wintry day and doing some writing is just lovely.  Nothing else matters much at the moment.  

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My daughter told me the other day that music of the Eighties is now a Big Thing.  My response was of the "what the fuck" kind until I remembered how much I'd loved the music of the Eighties.
Joy Division.  New Order.  Siouxsie and the Banshees.  The Cure.  The Birthday Party.  The Bad Seeds.  Nick Cave.  Einstürzende Neubauten etc etc.
But of course these are not the bands that turn up on current playlists.  "Take on me,"  said my daughter, trying to think of an example, and I realised it was all pop.  The kind of pop you really want to forget.  Pretty much like the whole of the Eighties, come to think of it.  It's the one decade of my life that I would like very much to fold up and shove into a black hole, given just how truly fucking awful it was.  Everything bad that ever happened to me and everything bad I ever did happened in THAT decade.  The scars I still bear today happened in THAT decade.  Everything about myself that I'm still trying to escape happened in THAT decade.  
Except, perhaps, the music (but not the pop music).  By chance, when I turned on the telly last night, an ancient episode of Top of the Pops was playing......."Take on me."  By chance, when I walked into a shoe shop this morning on Oxford Street, they were playing......."Take on me."  
Aargh.  Was I being haunted?  Was this silly song going to follow me everywhere?  Then I walked into another shop on Oxford Street and they were playing New Order's "Blue Monday" which was so goddamn cool that I stayed for longer than I'd meant to and spent too much money.  
I still have the original 12" extended version somewhere.  I used to blast it out on the speakers whenever my parents went out for filter coffee (they were probably trying to get away from me).  Instead of rushing off to dig it out (I hardly need to thanks to YouTube), now all I can think is:  how much could I get for this ancient piece of vinyl.
And continuing with the Eighties theme, I then went to a branch of Costa I didn't know well (Rathbone Place) and discovered they have filter coffee.  Wow, rare find!  I was so delighted I had a giant cup and will now no doubt be awake for several days.
"How does it feel..........."
(And yes it does take over two minutes for the vocals to kick in!)
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