On May 1st I started a hundred day challenge to write a hundred posts each of exactly a hundred words. I completed it, but by then it had become a habit! You may notice that there are no hundred words for Day 137; for the first time in all those days I didn’t write, I just completely forgot.
Day 136
It’s been a while since I watched a TV series on iPlayer/ITV Hub/Walter Presents. I guess it started with Forbrydelsen/The Killing, when I first encountered the actor Nicolas Bro. I moved on to other Scandi-Noir and Scandi-TV series and I watched many excellent Euro-dramas, more than I can remember offhand, but they raised expectations of all other crime series.
Having seen excellent Welsh-Noir, I have started watching the Loch – what’s the most famous loch in Scotland? Loch Ness – and that’s it. This has everything that good Noir needs, excellent acting, well-written, well-directed, good story, a setting which becomes a character.
Day 137
Day 138
I don’t read many biographies but I am reading one about Ernest Hemingway. I read most of his novels when young, and recently read a few of his short stories for book club. He’s much admired, his style may have been revolutionary, but the type of man he was is not now so admired.
This biography is told through Hemingway’s boat, and it’s curiously written, so far defying continuity and actual sequence. At the moment I’m gripped, but will this style pall? Will it become confusing or tedious, or… might I find it an interesting way to write – judiciously?
Day 139
The dog has a bed but prefers to sleep on the floor under the table in the dining room, maybe a left-over from his life on the street. During the evening, after his walk he snoozes in the sitting room, but when it’s time for bed, he comes with me to the backdoor, saunters out and disappears into the garden. The backdoor is always left open for him during the day, and tonight, waiting for him to saunter back, I noticed a large snail had wandered in; I carefully picked it up from the doormat and put it back outside.
Day 140
Out for lunch with friends, waiting for them at a table in the restaurant looking back across Weston Bay, formerly Glentworth, it was pleasant. It was pleasant in a normal, everyday, unmasked sort of way. People strolled past, people came in and took their places, we ate olives, drank beer and conversed about nothing much at all.
The friends arrived, full of apologies, buying a new phone takes more time than you might expect. Furnished with drinks we consulted the menus, made our choices, and sat back with our drinks talking and laughing and in an ordinary way, enjoying ourselves.
Day 141
I’ve come to a point where once again my head is empty. A hundred words – not so much, I wrote a blog-post sixteen times that this evening. I do confess however, that progress is slower on my latest novel which really should be finished by now. The end is surely in sight, but progress snail-like.
Why can’t I get cracking, why can’t I force it as I have before, why do I sit staring at it or divert myself with writing other things, reading other things, looking at other things? And now my 100 words a day has slowed…
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I have published the first 100 of my 100 word blogs which I completed in 100 days to raise money for the Captain Tom Foundation:
Lois Elsden 