Monk Quixote

I have returned from deep­est, dark­est, Devon. No, not the metaphor­i­cal Devon of the mind — all rugged tufts of thought and sanity-rescue lan­drovers.  The Devon of an Arvon writ­ing retreat.  Think thatch, inter­mit­tent show­ers and peo­ple wax­ing lyri­cal about the ear­lier works of Gra­ham Greene. The sounds you can hear are the gen­tle benev­o­lence of poets, and the fran­tic herd­ing of cat-like egos, anx­ious and well, more anx­ious, fuelled by tea, cheese and red wine.

And the bel­low­ing of cows con­fused by the chang­ing of the clocks.  Well, I say clocks. Whis­per it qui­etly but I think some rocks could give cows a run for their money on an IQ test.

I have eaten my own body­weight in Nutella, hope­fully made new friends, con­versed with a win­ner of the Orwell Prize (I’m con­vinced that you don’t talk with peo­ple who’ve won big awards. One con­verses. Dar­ling. Actu­ally, this is entirely unfair, as she was one of the nicest, most hum­ble, sen­si­ble peo­ple I’ve met).  There have been wild thoughts, and mes­sages sent through the ether — through time and space. Many of which appear to have ended up writ­ten in shaky biro or felt tip pen in the drawer in the desk in my room.

I’ve shared secrets and mad­nesses, and told com­plete strangers the most unbe­liev­able things. Except they were all true. Well, except the lies. A bit of heroic lamp­light never hurt a good telling.

I’ve lis­tened, and nod­ded, and read aloud. Prod­ded and probed. Been skew­ered — ‘I lost inter­est’ is pos­si­bly the most dis­heart­en­ing thing an indi­vid­ual can ever say to another.  But I found new strengths. And revenge is best served in lines on a page. And there has been a lot of that. My shit list has lost a few names these past few days. Shame, by def­i­n­i­tion, they will never read the lines and recog­nise them­selves. But still, the fun is had, regardless.

Cathar­sis. Only bet­tered by love. I’ve been excited by mono­logues and dis­gusted by chicken parts. I have writ­ten — every day, and in rea­son­able amounts. I feel I have grown from a writ­ing puppy, keen, eager and need­ing to be toi­let trained, to a more…controllable sort of writ­ing dog. My paws are dirty, but my snout is clean. I still chase after cars. But they deserve it, for the most part. For being shiny and noisy and smelly and fast.

I steer clear of the cows. They stare. They know. I am sorry that I eat you, big, clumsy shaggy thing. But you are a cow. And I have oppos­able thumbs. And the wit and imag­i­na­tion to eat you. If not the skill and courage to kill you.

But I digress. Writ­ing is good. Writ­ing is fun. The novel moves on, and new faces come and go in rea­son­ably bite-sized vignettes. I feel, at times, that I am writ­ing some­thing like Amelie-for-boys meets Poirot-with-the-black-humour-cells. And this pleases me. And the real­i­sa­tion that this pleases me, pleases me even more.

I’m not as scared as I once was. I can see the vaguest pos­si­bil­ity of me fin­ish­ing this book. And the free­dom to write other things. I will no longer be trapped by these peo­ple. By Tom. By Monk Quixote. And there’s a slim chance that some peo­ple will find it inter­est­ing enough to pub­lish. If I can hold their interest.

I will do what I can, dear blog, to write my lit­tle spo­radic non­sense. But for now, the flow pulls me in the direc­tion of a cab ride across Lon­don. And a man wear­ing a neck­er­chief will open the door to a sur­prise visitor.

I’ve writ­ten it before, and said it to every­one I can. But for any writer who feels unsure of them­selves, or feels guilty about the self­ish­ness of writ­ing — retreat­ing inwards, down­wards — then I sim­ply can­not rec­om­mend going on an Arvon Foun­da­tion course highly enough.

It was magic the first time. And the magic — and the cows — are back this time, too.  And you know what, I think the cows have fol­lowed me home.…

Yes, folks, my moo-joy has returned. (Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. I tried to resist, but it was star­ing at me in another win­dow. Like a big, shaggy, cow).