Here I am, another year begun, and again contemplating what inspires me, to get up in the morning, to get on with chores, especially to write. Do I have to be in a ‘good’ mood, no longer under dawn’s cloud of depression?

That’s usually fixed with a cup of coffee, especially if taken in a coffee shop/café. The sun? A most obvious source of bright feelings. No wonder Akhenaten worshipped the golden disc in the sky, the giver of warmth and light, an important ingredient for making things grow.

Bringing forth from the earth these first flowers, to prize up, to knuckle through winter’s cold. My first harbingers of spring to come with the promise that light and warmth will once more return to the earth Aconites.
But to be creative, to write and to rewrite, even when it isn’t the best, that’s what makes me feel good. To have got something down on paper and still have more to say. At the moment, there’s a novel underway. Bill and Betty have become my new acquaintances who, like most of my characters, are surprising me with their reactions to situations in which I place them, or going in other directions. Frightening and fun, frustrating and fulfilling.
Also, I have ‘According to Reggie’ to proofread for a last time before publishing here. So plenty to do.

Inspiration, yes, but determination and grit, to convince myself that it’s all worthwhile. I want to know what happens in my novel as much as in the other people’s novel that I read. And writing that down makes me excited. I want to know, and I hope in the future, when the novel is finished, readers will feel the same.