I love The Mandalorian!  It’s just absolutely the best tonic for the pandemic, working on so many different levels, for so many different age groups.  I’m quite sure I’m only one of billions who thinks it’s utterly brilliant!
 
I love that cowboy feel to it – every planet is a desert, every town a mongrel outback.  One town even has a rectangular entrance arch, reminiscent of every cowboy movie you ever saw.  And the theme tune is a split second away from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.  Humanoids and droids of all kinds live on the edge, both literally and figuratively.  We’re back in the familiar territory of the original Star Wars trilogy, a world that I first discovered in my youth (I was 14 when Star Wars:  A New Hope came out) and now seems long lost.  The Empire struck back and lost but things aren’t exactly peachy.
Throw into this the Mandalorian himself.  I know nothing about Mandalorians or Mandalor as I’ve not watched the animated series, The Clone Wars.  But you know what?  It doesn’t matter.  You get fed enough information to work it out.  Remembering bits and pieces from Star Wars movies gives the story resonance but I’m quite sure you’d be able to watch this without knowing anything – I’m thinking particularly of younger kids here, who may not (how?!) have ever seen a Star Wars movie.  I can’t get over the fact how much you love the main character, the Mandalorian himself, played by Pedro Pascal, because YOU NEVER SEE HIS FACE.  What does the actor have left to act with?  His voice (gruff and sexy), his body, his armour, but mostly his stillness.  Even hidden behind a helmet, his emotions are plain to see.
The main story arc has been unfolding slowly (I’m currently halfway through the second series) and what a brilliant story it is.  I’d be quite happy for this tale to go on for 100 episodes.  As it is, it gets eked out in only eight episodes per series, which is a killer.  And sometimes those episodes are very short, barely over half an hour.  Yet every episode is packed with plot, with action, with humour, with fantastic characters, and also quite a lot of beasties.  I could probably do without the monster-of-the-week (those spiders aaaargh) and does food always have to be alive in sci-fi stuff these days?!  I love that it can be REALLY funny without anyone cracking a joke. 
There really is something for everyone.  Thoughtful moments as well as big action sequences, without ever resorting to swearing or gore (both of which have been done to death and lack imagination).  There are moments of terror, of great sadness (“I have spoken!) and air-punching joy.  The delight I feel in watching each episode has been a tonic during lockdown2.
Now hang a sec.  I’m sure I’ve forgotten something.
Ah.
Baby Yoda.
As if the rest of this show isn’t wonderful enough, we get a small green alien child of unknown origin, about whom nothing is known except that we know he’s the same species as Yoda.  And oh dear God, he’s the cutest thing ever invented.  I’ve been a diehard fan since the first moment I saw him in endless clips on YouTube.  When I finally got around to watching the first series, it occurred to me that his darling sweetness might be, well, a bit saccharin.  But I needn’t have worried.  There’s nothing sentimental in this series.  Unlike another sci-fi TV series that continues to disappoint (Star Trek:  Discovery), there is no dripping, gushing sentiment at work.  The Child does not take over the story at all, though it is basically at the heart of the story arc.  And there’s no deliberate cuteness.  There’s no cutesy babyness.  He’s adorable, he’s funny, but he also pukes up blue biscuits. 
 
There’s just one thing I’ve wondered about though (other than what Din Djarin looks like after a bath) is why the Child has not been named.  People have an innate desire to name things.  Even a stray dog gets a name, or a cat who visits you once a week, or a squirrel you see regularly in the park (oh, okay, only me, then).  If you are going to have a small child-creature with you for any length of time, wouldn’t you name it? 
 
(The drawing is by my daughter)

I finished a short story!  That doesn’t sound particularly amazing but considering the year I’ve had with writing, just to say I’ve FINISHED something feels like quite an achievement.
 
I never expected to write this particular short story.  The idea was quite unbelievably grim, describing the abuse of a preadolescent, all the way into her twenties.  This is not my usual style, nor was it something I was comfortable with.  The story’s saving grace was the beauty of the setting:  a wild, windy coastline, with an eerie quicksand beach.  There was a hint of magic – the heroine (or should I say victim?) was accused frequently of inverting her witchery (hence the abuse).  But otherwise the predominant colour of the story was grey.
 
I thought I might have come up with this idea very early this year, but I’ve just checked the creation date of the Word document in which I wrote up the notes I’d made, and I can’t believe it was last year in September.  When I finished the notes, I had a pretty good idea that I would never write it.  It was too grim.  No one would want to read it.  The fact that it had a fantastically happy ending wasn’t good enough – no one would ever get that far.  And, quite frankly, I didn’t want to write it either!  It was just too miserable!
 
But with my writing going so badly this year, suddenly I was in the mood to write something relentlessly grim.  Once the year had settled into its new routine – daughter back at uni, me back work, new lockdown on the horizon – I began The Winds of Witching.  I handwrote it as this gives me the greatest pleasure.  When you handwrite, you think you are creating the most wonderful piece of writing.  You are convinced that it’s going brilliantly, that jewels are dripping out the nib of your Bic.  Handwriting is great for your confidence!  I also noticed how calm I felt after a writing session.  Every rape scene took monumental confront but when I was done, I felt almost peaceful.  Anxiety slipped away.  I felt like myself again.
 
I remember mentioning this to my hairdresser who, in her great wisdom, said that the process of writing this grim tale was one of catharsis, given the difficult year we’ve just had.  Okay, she didn’t use those exact words but that’s what she meant!
 
When I came to type up the story, however, I realised how BAD it was.  Badly written, badly conceived, badly plotted.  But I gritted my teeth and did that thing that 95% of writing is about:  I edited.  I rewrote, changed stuff, put stuff in, took it out again, and by the time I got to the final draft, I stripped it down as much as I could.  When I was done, I was satisfied.  The satisfaction was enough that I could walk away from it and feel that it was, for the moment, finished. 
 
I suspect no one will ever read it.  So what was the point?  When I get the blues (and I’m calling them the blues when it should really be called black-hole-blackness), the one word that leaps into my mind a lot is “pointless.”  Everything feels pointless.  My life, my writing, the world, the whole universe (I tend to be dramatic in my thinking when I’m down).  I was determined that this short story WOULD have some point, even if it wasn’t to be read. 
 
It was, basically, an exercise in self-discipline.  Because if I’m going to get myself to the other end of this pandemic in one piece, I have to get back on the writing train.  I can’t just hang around the rail tracks.  With this project, I pushed myself hard.  I edited that damn piece of rubbish writing until it work, finally achieving something, only a very small thing, but better than nothing.  Confronting a difficult piece of work seems to be the way to go.
 
My next project is to edit – yet again! – that monstrous novel that I have, in hilarious moments, called my Prizewinning Novel.  I’m determined to attack the thing until it too works, until the words leap off the page so freshly the ink could still be wet. 
 
I may have to gird my loins for this.  

In which I shout and swear a lot at my phone.
​My coronavirus video diary continues. This month I rant and rage a lot and you get to look up both my nostrils.