Footnotes From France

I have realised that trying to ‘write’ is 10% creativity and 90% discipline.  These past 3-4 months, trying to combine paid work, day-to-day life and making the time to carry on with research and writing has been hugely difficult.  Distractions and other priorities pop up all the time, and once the evening or weekend arrives, it’s all too easy to collapse in an exhausted heap.  My conclusion?  The creativity is willing, but the discipline is weak!

This is why I now find myself tucked away in a remote part of South West France, courtesy of my lovely friends who live down here.  They very generously offered me the opportunity to take a week away from daily life, and get on with the job at hand without distraction, so armed with my laptop, and various books and papers, I flew down here yesterday, collected a rental car from the airport and after only getting lost twice, arrived bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and ready to go.  It’s a delight to be here amidst the rolling fields and farms and forests, to see my friends again and to spend the day catching up, putting various worlds to rights and then sitting down to watch the final stage of the Tour de France on the television, our own Bradley Wiggins wearing the yellow jersey, victory assured, the jostling for position up and down the Champs-Élysées, each team working to line up their best sprinters for the final burst to the finish line.  Thrilling stuff, not least because for the first time in Tour de France history, a British rider has won, with a second Brit as runner up, and to cap it all off, a third Brit winning the final sprint finish in Paris.  Not sure about Lesley Garrett singing the national anthem though…

But back to the job at hand – I have decided to revisit my blog as a means of warming up my creative writing style again, while also reasserting a degree of discipline.  I suspect the week will hurtle by, but other than the occasional trip down to the Tabac, it’s really just me, a laptop and enough research material to populate a small library.

Wish me luck!