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It’s a strange feeling starting a blog post with absolutely no idea what I’m going to write. Just the knowledge that it’s now twenty past nine and I have to produce 500 words before I can go to bed, or pay the ultimate penalty. Well … £12.50 actually … but as I don’t think I can reasonably claim to have written 500 words yesterday, the fines are beginning to mount up.

For those who missed the news, I spent the weekend in Paignton. My room was beyond the reach of the hotel’s wifi, so I decided to reconnect with real paper. I’d forgotten how different the writing experience is when you’re working with a pink A4 notepad and a plastic tube of ink. Crossing things out. Drawing arrows and brackets instead of cutting and pasting. Re-writing entire paragraphs, because more annotation will render the original illegible.

My normal modus operandi is to put a few sentences on paper, to get the feel of what I’m creating. I then graduate to the screen so I can see what I’m doing. Unless I’m writing poetry. Then I use pencil right up to the line. No good asking. I have no idea why. This weekend has left me with pages of indecipherable, scribbled-over scrawl. And a far better understanding of why my literary forbears were so verbose. It’s going to be several days before I can make head of tail of what I’ve written, never mind air the first draft here.

One of my pet hates is the miserable cliché ‘genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration‘. This more than likely because, in a past life, it was often quoted at me by someone who never perspired over anything. Unless the central heating was turned up. The quote is loosely attributed to Thomas Alva Edison. Who might have annoyed me just as much, but in a very different way. Unfortunately for my personal prejudices, the last few days have proved that there’s a kernel of truth in the idea after all. In fact, I’ve begun to realise it’s perfectly possible for perspiration to drag inspiration in its wake, rather than the other way around. If you force yourself to sit down and write, words will appear on the page. They have no choice. They may be drivel. But drivel’s better than nothing. You can work with drivel. Drivel can be honed. Nothing is … well, nothing.

I’m in the process of rethinking the whole idea of inspiration. I’d always thought it other-worldly. Ethereal. Uncontrollable. I’m not so sure now. The obligation to find 500 words a day is changing my perspective. I knew something weird was going on when I checked in to Facebook shortly after arriving at the hotel on Saturday. Within minutes I’d dug out my pen and notepad and started work on a short story. I almost missed dinner. So, what produced this flurry of creativity? An incredible tale of human endeavour? A heart-warming love story? An inspiring news item perhaps? Not even a picture of a cute kitten? No. It was a misspelled, ungrammatical, vaguely misogynistic joke. It was posted by a friend-of-a-friend. I’ve never met him. To be honest, I wouldn’t want to if he thinks that was funny. So why didn’t I do what any intelligent woman would, and unfriend him at once? Well, I couldn’t, could I? He might post something else I can use.

Does this mean I’m becoming a writer at last …?

Today’s post is the first draft of a short story.  I’ll be forced to neglect the blog for the next two days, as I’m going away and I won’t have an internet connection.  I’m planning to spend some remembering how it feels to write with a real pen and paper instead …

The Invisible Woman

I think I may be invisible now. The fog doesn’t help, mind. I haven’t seen fog like this since the last smog in London. Thick and acrid. Catching in your throat. We walked to school with scarves over our mouths. Made all the difference. I remember mine. Red. With white stripes. Mum knitted it while I was having my tonsils out. Her words rang in our ears as the cold stung them. Keep your scarf over your mouth. This isn’t just fog, it’s smog, you know. It can kill people. Will it kill me? No dear, just old people. I’m old myself now. They don’t tell you it’s pollution of course. Mother earth’s last gasp. They don’t want to worry you. Keep things fuzzy. Like the headlights on the passing cars.

The supermarket lights pull things into focus. Make you want to buy them. I slip past the security guard. A stealth mission. To buy a pair of slippers. The girl in the shoe aisle can’t see me. She’s talking to her friend. Tidying the slippers. Very slowly. I wait for her to move. She carries on. Oblivious. Rabbiting about what she did last night. The other girl’s not doing anything at all. Does she get paid for that?

I used to imagine I had a cloak of invisibility. The things I could get up to if no-one could see me. Mum was never fooled by it. Stop daydreaming. Do something useful. She’d get me peeling potatoes or polishing the silver-plated spoons. I so wanted it to be real in those days.

I give up on slippers. I’ll get the rest of the shopping. Supper. Fish pie? There might be something nice in the reduced section. There’s a man heading straight at me. One little girl standing in the trolley. Another in the child seat. Screaming her head off. I want sweeeeets! I want sweeeeets! I step aside. He doesn’t even glance at me. The screams echo all down the aisle.

I’m not sure when I started to fade. Men used to wolf-whistle once upon a time. I was glad when that stopped. People used to stop and talk in the street. It could take half an hour to walk to the corner shop. Then younger women started giving up their seats on the bus. As recently as last year, a couple carried my bags up the stairs at the station.

I still can’t grasp paying four pounds for a ready-made fish pie for one. Extortion. I head for the wine section. At least I know what I want and where it is. Passing the fresh fish counter, a girl coming the other way wrinkles her nose at the smell. What was that programme called? The one where she wiggled her nose. Bewitched. That was it. I loved that programme. She used to make things happen. Much better than being invisible turned out to be.

The man in the wine aisle is right in my way. All I want is a bottle of half-price Shiraz. He’s scrutinising the shelf above. Can’t see me. Naturally. I’ve walked the length of this supermarket and my trolley’s still empty. I’m not leaving till I’ve got that bottle of wine. I’ll stand my ground. Wait for him to move. What’s taking him so long anyway? My nose is itching. I flare my nostrils. I swear that bottle moved. Twitch again. No doubt this time. A full-blown wiggle. A bottle of expensive Champagne edges its way along the shelf and crashes to the floor at my feet. The man turns sharply. Almost drops the bottle in his hand. The next one flies across the aisle and smashes into the Lambrusco. The third performs an elegant pirouette and makes a dive for the BOGOF beer. I’m getting the hang of this. Staff come running. The man shakes his head. Shrugs. Gesticulates. Bottles and wine boxes fly in all directions.

Just one bottle of Shiraz settles quietly in my trolley. The Champagne corks are starting to pop as I head for the checkout. This invisibility thing’s going to be a lot more fun than I thought.

A while ago, a good friend asked me to write an article for his magazine about my experience of studying creative writing as a mature student. He had already given me a lot of support and encouragement on the road to writing, so I’m ashamed to admit I passed up the opportunity. At the time I didn’t believe I had anything valid to say. After all, I wasn’t a writer was I? But for the next 113 days (at least) I’ve given up ‘not being a writer’. I think the time has come to jump in with both feet.

As a child, I lived story. I was a princess. A detective. The captain of a pirate ship. I was National Velvet, Jill’s Gymkhana and the whole crew of Swallows and Amazons rolled into one. I can’t remember not being able to read or make up stories. I spent my free time bringing my imagination to life. I used makeshift props. A yellow scarf for golden ringlets. My mother’s wedding dress, dyed royal blue. A stuffed sock on a garden cane. A rock that resembled a lamb.

Creative writing was encouraged in schools then. Back in the day, we wrote short stories – aka ‘compositions’ – regularly. In our final year at primary school, my best friend and I got quite competitive. She’d been telling everyone she was going to be a writer for as long as I’d known her. Things came to a head when we were asked to re-render Theseus and the Minotaur. I remember trawling through my mother’s threadbare dictionary for new words. I was determined to win this one. I lived and breathed Greek mythology for a week. I crafted descriptions on the walk to school. Invented plot twists on the bus. I couldn’t think about anything else. I was bereft when the time came to part with my book.

If I told you I could remember the results I’d be lying. I think it was a dead heat. I know we were streets ahead of the rest of the class. It’s possible I won. I know for sure I didn’t lose. If I had, I’d never have put pen to paper again. I imagine my friend’s forgotten the whole thing by now. We haven’t seen each other since we left primary school. But it must’ve left an impression on her. She’s a respected writer these days, specialising in bringing myths and fairytales to life. I suppose nobody told her it wasn’t a good idea. Or to stop daydreaming and do something sensible.

I’ll fast forward the years of ‘something sensible’. In 1999 I made a radical decision. I went back to university. You can call it a mid-life crisis if you like. It certainly wasn’t sensible. I studied English and Creative Writing at Bath Spa. I told myself it was a career move. In truth, after so many years in the wilderness, I just wanted to know if I could still write.

Hanif Kureishi recently dismissed creative writing courses as ‘a waste of time’. On one level, I agree with him. You can apply his argument to any skill. No amount of teaching will help you develop a talent you don’t have in the first place. I scraped maths O-level by the skin of my teeth. My teacher never spoke to me again. She had expected me to fail. She saw making models out of blotting paper during her classes as evidence that I wasn’t trying. She never saw the blood, sweat and tears that went into learning everything by rote, because I simply didn’t understand. I have no aptitude for maths.

Aptitude can’t be taught. Craft can. I’ll never crack a mathematical theorem, but at least I know a bit about Pythagoras. I don’t hear anyone suggesting that painters or sculptors shouldn’t study theur craft. If they’re going to create anything worthwhile, they’ll need to know how to use the tools of their trade. The same applies to writers. Philip Hensher says ‘No one writes through pure dazed inspiration; questions of craft and calculation enter in quite quickly’. It’s great to have a head full of stories. If you want to convey them to anyone else, you might need a few skills as well.

Signing up for a creative writing course was a high-risk strategy for me. I wanted to write more than anything else in the world, but I hadn’t done any serious writing since Miss Maynard trashed my work in Lower 4B. I didn’t know whether I had any aptitude. Any skills I’d had in the past were rusted beyond repair. I had to expose my work to other people. If they hated it as much as Miss M, I could pack up and go home. I had nothing to lose but my self-esteem. My tuition fees. And my job.

So why I didn’t just join a local writers’ group? The idea never even entered my head. I’m quite glad it didn’t. I’m not knocking writers’ groups. They’re brilliant. I’d recommend anyone who’s serious about writing to join one. The problem is, it’s perfectly possible to spend years in a writers’ group and never have anyone challenge you. The stakes aren’t high enough. A university has to award you a degree at the end of the process. If your work’s rubbish your tutor will tell you so, even if your classmates won’t.

Going to Bath Spa was one of the best crazy ideas I ever had. The course confirmed my passion for writing. It gave me the tools to craft a story. I learned how to cut out the all those unnecessarily tortuous, long-winded, time-consuming and ultimately pointless adjectives and adverbs. I was taught to make sure that the sentences I produced in the course of my prognostications were simply and clearly structured and of the shortest conceivable length, with the minimum possible usage of clauses, sub-clauses and other complex and confusing grammatical structures that could serve to distract my audience from any nuances of the plot that I might wish them to focus their attention upon. Show don’t tell. Keep it simple. Dickens is so century-before-last. And, unlike maths, I understood it. Towards the end of the course, a conversation with one of my tutors ran something like this.

At least you can string a sentence together.

I’m in the final year of an English degree. Isn’t that a given?

*weary sigh* You’d be surprised how many of our students can’t.

In my second year at grammar school the RE teacher decided it would be a good idea to read the whole of the Acts of the Apostles out loud. In the King James Version. The National Curriculum hadn’t been invented then. I wrote reams of adolescent poetry in her classes. I wasn’t so sure about poetry at university. I signed up for a course anyway. In for a penny and all that. The tutor walked into the first class, sat down and told us to write something. I was horrified. I came here to be taught how to do it. Not to have you tell me to get on with it. I was paralysed with fear. I’ll never forget his opener in our first tutorial.

If you hate poetry so much, why are you doing this module?

Poetry reaches a part of me no other genre can touch. I resisted because I didn’t feel ready for it. Ready or not, a day or two later my first poem grabbed me by the throat. Charles Saatchi style. Bewildered by the force of it, I fell in love. I’ve never recovered.

A creative writing course was anything but a waste of time for me. It affirmed my aptitude. Taught me the craft of writing. Made me fall in love with poetry. It also enabled me to experiment with genres I hadn’t considered before, such as fantasy, science fiction and writing for children. Above all, it gave me structure and discipline. Arch-enemies of artistic inspiration, you think? Not in the least. It’s amazing how inspiration flows when you’re faced with a deadline. A group of fellow students waiting to workshop your next chapter. Even a pledge to write 500 words a day for 125 days.

For most of my life I thought I was an introvert. No sniggering at the back there, please. After all, writers are basically recluses, aren’t they? All those hours alone in a room, chained to a typewriter. The reclusive author is about as big a cliché as the typewriter. We need people. Where else does inspiration come from? Who else kicks us up the backside when we lose the plot? What’s the point if no-one reads what we write? We’re artists. We need an audience. We need people to encourage, inspire and inform us. To reflect us (and our writing) back to ourselves, warts and all. For me, that’s what doing a creative writing course was all about. I’m never going to make my first million this way, but I’d go back and do an MA tomorrow if my bank manager wasn’t so pernickety. Come to think of it, maths might have been more sensible after all …

A big thank you to everyone who enjoyed yesterday’s post, although ‘enjoy’ may be the wrong word. There’s another longish post on a very different theme in the pipeline. I’m amazed to find I’ve notched up over 1000 words today. Maybe this is becoming a habit! Having written 1000 words offline, I’m only going to give a nod and a smile to the blog tonight. I’ll be able to post something more substantial very soon.

Please remember you can encourage me and support One25 by donating at http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-web/fundraiser/showFundraiserProfilePage.action?userUrl=JeanMutch

And if you make a donation, you can also leave a suggestion for a topic or a title for a short story. Thanks again for all the support and encouragement.

8 o’clock. I’ve just realised how dark it is out there. I’m buttering bread. Slicing cheese. Wondering what possessed me to think of venturing out at this hour. It’s raining too. Hammering on the kitchen window. Couldn’t I just curl up and watch Supersize vs Superskinny instead?

Cheese sandwiches wrapped and bagged, I’m outside. It’s emptying down. The umbrella’s inside out before I reach the kerb. Come to think of it, I’m not sure these boots are waterproof. I avoid the first puddle, then plunge my left foot straight into the next. I was right about the boots.  I scan the pavement as I weave through the traffic outside one Bristol’s dodgiest pubs. I don’t want to be first to arrive. You’re pretty much invisible in this part of the city, unless you’re obviously well-heeled or up to your neck in something nasty. Happily, I’m neither. I still don’t like waiting outside the building alone though.

I’m quite new to all this. One25’s van has been cruising the city by night since 1996. In that time, they’ve offered care and support to hundreds of street sex workers. Their drop-in has been operating since 1995. I arrived on the scene less than two years ago. I’m part of a dedicated team of around 120 volunteers. I go out on the van about once a month. I also work in the drop-in most weeks.

The rain shows no sign of easing up as we edge the van past a flashy sports car, parked in the narrow lane behind the Grosvenor Centre. The box in the back is stuffed with hats, gloves and scarves. We’re out of umbrellas. You have to be mad to work the street on a night like tonight. Or desperate. Our first stop is not far from the main shopping centre. The girl on the corner ignores us, intent on a potential punter in the park. Another woman gets into the back of the van. She says she’s starving and pleads for socks. Crying with the cold. Her canvas shoes are wet through. There are no socks on board tonight. My co-worker makes hot chocolate. My soggy boot doesn’t seem so bad all of a sudden. Then the first girl rattles the door. The punter’s lost his bottle. She’s stick-thin. I could probably encircle her upper arm with my thumb and index finger. She won’t give a name. Not even a false one. Avoids eye contact. Doesn’t join the conversation. She takes food and melts into the darkness. We don’t see her again.

I lived more than half my life in rural Wiltshire. Inner-city Bristol was a massive culture shock when I arrived. I had coffee with my daughter one day. Back then she was working for a drugs project. The funding for their work with women was about to be axed and she was livid. The big money was going to the men’s work. They’re the ones who push up crime statistics. The women are invisible. Nobody cares. I can still feel the passion in her voice.

But I didn’t get it at first. The school I worked in had a sign outside. Kerb crawlers will be prosecuted. I still didn’t get it. About 8 o’clock one morning I was walking into work. One of the parents – a big man with dreadlocks – ran past me like a bat out of hell. He started effing and blinding at a woman who was getting into a car. She was tiny. A puff of wind could’ve taken her out. I remember she had glasses. Held together with sticky tape. He called her all the names under the sun. It’s always the woman who gets the blame. What was the first thing Adam said when God caught him with that apple? She gave it to me. It’s not my fault. The car drove off.

One of the scariest places in the city is underneath the motorway. It’s full of shadows. You could hide a body under here for weeks. No-one would know. We pull up sharply. The driver’s been doing this for years. The rest of us didn’t even see the woman. She makes conversation while I make tea.

Aren’t you scared out here at this time of night?

Scared? We’re in a secure metal box. You’re out there all alone.

She points out the description of her most recent assailant on the ‘Ugly Mugs’ board. She’s quite matter-of-fact. Makes it sound as if it’s normal to be beaten, raped and robbed. I guess it is in the world she’s inhabiting at the moment. I used to think it was normal to be shouted at morning, noon and night. If you didn’t wind me up so much I wouldn’t be like this. ‘Normal’ doesn’t mean ‘okay’.

Blaming women runs deep in the psyche of our culture. Not long after the ranting-parent incident, a colleague was driving me to a meeting. It was rush hour. He knew all the rat runs. In a narrow back street we met another car head-on. I’ll never forget the girl in the passenger seat. Thin face. Dark hair scraped back. She was cringed against the door. As far from him as she could get. Her whole body screamed that she didn’t want to be there. He was old enough to be her father. Grandfather even. I was horrified. My colleague was disgusted. He muttered under his breath as we drove off.

Scabby prostitute.

If it wasn’t for scabby men, there wouldn’t be any.

The response came, clear and unbidden, from a place deep inside me. He looked at me. Startled.

I’d never thought of it that way before.

The woman in the red coat’s drinking Special Brew through a straw. There’s a strict no-alcohol policy, so she leaves the can on the step of the van. The booze keeps her warm she says. Gives her the courage to do what she has to. I’ve not seen her before. She says she used to be a regular. She’s clean now. Got her kids back and everything. But it’s tough living on benefits, and now she’s been sanctioned. She’s doing this to buy Christmas presents for the kids.

Across the road, another woman gets into a car. To be honest, seeing that is still a step too real for me. I struggle with the men in this equation. Not the punters so much, although they’re bad enough. It’s the partners. I can’t get my head around a man who’s willing to sell the woman he says he loves. I used to think ‘pimp’. But the word implies distance and detachment. At least to me. There’s a kind of fierce co-dependence on the street. A woman got on the van a few months ago, not far from where we are now. She had a can in her hand. Refused point blank to part with it.

No. I’m not leaving it. He’ll have it if I do.

He?

My bloke. He’s over there. Keeping an eye on me. He cares about me. Really he does.

How sweet. Do I believe he was there out of concern for her welfare? The hell he was. He was worried she’d run off with the money. You can’t trust anyone out here. Especially if they say they love you.

If it’s a grim picture I’m painting so far, I’m sorry. But it’s real. In a society that chooses to criminalise addiction, instead of dealing with the pain that causes it, this is the inevitable result. To add insult to injury, we blame the women for surviving by the only means open to them. 99% of the women working the streets of Bristol are addicted to Class A drugs or alcohol. Or both. 100% of those receiving intensive casework support from One25 were abused as children. If it were all sunshine and roses there’d be no need for One25. I could watch Supersize vs Superskinny every night. I could be blissfully ignorant. But I don’t want to give the impression it’s a hopeless situation. That every woman who works the streets is a hapless victim and there’s nothing to be done about it. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is possible to get free. To ‘step away from the streets’. In 2012 / 2013, thirty-nine women did just that with the support of One25.

We’re heading back towards the shopping centre on our third or fourth circuit when I see something that breaks me. I thought I’d caught a glimpse of her earlier, but she faded into the shadows before I could be sure. I hoped I was wrong. There’s no doubt this time. She struts in front of the van. High head. High heels. Red lipstick. Yesterday we were stacking cupboards in the drop-in together. Discussing her progress in recovery. Tonight she’s back on the street. She won’t come onto the van. I’m having a bad day, is all she’ll say.

The quality of heartbreak that comes from seeing somebody you care about relapse is like no other. For a split second I’m back with a man I love. Watching him neck three bottles of red wine. I’ll cry myself to sleep when I get home. In the morning, something strange will happen. The thing I’ll remember will be the sheer attitude with which she stepped out of the shadows. This woman has been to hell and back. Lived nightmares most of us never even have to dream. In the face of all this she can still stand up and defy those who’ve used her. I wish I had half the guts she has. Three months from now all this will be forgotten. She and I will be walking on fire to raise money for One25. So will the woman who cried because there were no socks. We don’t know that yet. All we have is hope.

I fled my second abuser nearly seven years ago. One of the things that led me home to Bristol, after a five-year exile, was watching The Secret Millionaire. I saw One25 in action. I remembered that conversation over coffee so many years before. I thought I might make a difference for someone who’d suffered far worse than I had. I could become a kind of Lady Bountiful. Dispensing wisdom and charity to those in need. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Instead, One25 has been crucial to my own recovery. I’ve met, and grown to love, so many amazing women. They’ve helped me to face the truth about my own demons. Some of us are still struggling. Some are on the way. Some are further along the path. But we’re in it together. And it’s only by the grace of God that I’m the one sitting inside this van tonight.

Hmmm … this journey is taking some interesting turns as the second week gets under way. Until now, the blog has been the main focus of my efforts. I’ve fretted about posting 500 words a day, so as to ‘prove’ I’m writing. However, this has often been at the expense of producing anything substantial. Writing about writing has begun to be an excellent excuse for not actually writing.

Today’s been different. This evening I’ve focussed mainly on my piece about One25. It’s growing steadily. I’m also editing the early part, but my editor and I seem to be getting along much better than we were last week. Editing feels like progress now, rather than frustration. This has made it a little hard to judge how many of the words have actually been written today and how many simply changed or replaced. But I’m confident that this post, together with the work I’ve been doing on the other piece will give me well over 500 words for today.

I’ve also started to think about ways to work with my inner butterfly instead of suppressing her. I could experiment with different styles and genres. I love writing poetry. It may not work well with the 500-word rule though. Flash fiction could work. And it’s well suited to the butterfly mind. Polemic of course. I could do that really well. There’s nothing like a good rant. And who says you have to start at the beginning of a novel and plod through to the end? It works better if you’re reading admittedly, but the writer isn’t restricted in the same way. I could write individual scenes and stitch them together later. Like the patchwork quilt in last night’s photo.

I’ve been browsing through articles and books about writing. I’ve resisted the urge to go wild on Amazon so far, much though I’m itching to download some goodies onto the Kindle. A ‘domestic storage device’ my daughter called it when she bought it for my birthday a couple of years back. She thought it might reduce the piles of books strewn around my flat. We can all dream … I think Natalie Goldberg is top of my list at the moment. But I already own books about writing by Anne Lamott and Christopher Vogler that I haven’t finished reading yet, so I’ve no excuse for buying more at the moment. I also found an excellent article in the Guardian, that’s given me yet another idea for a piece of writing of my own, so watch this space … All in all, day nine has felt fruitful. But I’m wary of complacency. I mustn’t let one good day lull me into a false sense of security.

Congratulations! You made it through the first week. So tell me, how has it been?

Good in parts. There have been some amazing highs and a couple of spectacular lows.

Tell me about one of the highs

Finishing the very first blog post. That was brilliant. I almost didn’t make it. It was Saturday evening. I’m self-employed, so weekends are a bit of a non-event. I’d worked all day, and I didn’t sit down to start writing until about 8.30 pm. If it hadn’t been for a friend who raised the stakes by insisting on a fine of £12.50 for every day I failed, I would have fallen at the first fence. The sheer elation of seeing that first post and knowing I’d succeeded was incredible. And totally unexpected.

And a low?

Thursday evening. That was the worst. Waiting in Tesco’s for a paramedic to arrive. Watching the time slip away. Knowing it would be too late to write by the time I got home. And being utterly unable to do anything about it.

Sounds bad. What happened?

All I wanted wanted was a bottle of wine. Oh, and a new pair of slippers. The soles are falling off these. I’d been indoors most of the day, so I thought I’d wander up to Tesco’s. It would give me time to think about what I was going to write, and a glass of wine would be good when I finished. The bottle I wanted was on the bottom shelf. As I picked it up there was a sharp pain in the back of my head. Then a loud smash. The man next to me had dislodged half a dozen small bottles from the top shelf. One of them broke on my head. The rest ended up on the floor all round me.

Ouch! I guess you didn’t write much that evening, then?

Not really. I still felt quite dazed when the paramedic dropped me home. I posted a photo of the bottle of wine and a brief explanation on the blog.

Did that affect your motivation?

Yes. Definitely. To be honest, it was hard to write the following day. I’m a closet perfectionist and I really felt I’d failed. I wanted to throw in the towel. But I’d had a request from a donor to write about a specific subject, so I tackled that last night. I ended up writing around 800 words, although the piece isn’t ready to go on the blog yet. I felt much better after that, so I think I’m back on track now.

Tell me about this ‘perfectionist’ thing

Do I have to?

Yep

Dammit. That’s the trouble with being interviewed by someone who actually understands me.

Go on then

Oh all right. I hate getting anything wrong. I’d rather do nothing than make a mess of something or a fool of myself. It’s the reason for all those unfinished jumpers and novels. And all the unread books on the shelf. All right, Dr Freud?

Unread books?

I might spoil them if I read them. Crease the pages. Break the spines. That kind of thing. Now, can we change the subject, please?

Hmmm … so do you think this challenge is going to make a difference?

I’m hoping to raise lots of money for One25. They make a massive difference to the lives of street sex workers in Bristol. If you go to http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-web/fundraiser/showFundraiserProfilePage.action?userUrl=JeanMutch you can encourage me by donating. You can also suggest a topic for me to write about, or a title for a short story …

Yes, yes. I know all that. What about the perfectionist?

I thought we were changing the subject. But that’s the thing isn’t it? You start out doing something for other people. You think you’re going to change somebody else’s world for the better, but you end up receiving far more than you can ever give. This crazy challenge may end up changing my life for ever. I only hope it will also make a difference to the lives of some of the incredible women I’ve met at One25.

Today’s post is another short one, I’m afraid. Don’t worry, I haven’t given up on giving up. Far from it. The shortage of words here tonight is not because I haven’t been writing. I’ve been working on a piece suggested by one of my donors. Well, to be honest, my only donor at present. I’ve written well over 700 words today, but the finished article isn’t honed for publication yet.

If you’d like to suggest something for me to write about – either a topic or a title – you can do so by making a donation and leaving a message at

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-web/fundraiser/showFundraiserProfilePage.action?userUrl=JeanMutch

If I’m inundated (as I hope I will be soon …) I won’t be able to guarantee to write something for every request I receive, but I’ll do my best. However, I can guarantee that every penny donated will go to help the wonderful work One25 does in supporting street sex workers in Bristol to Step Away From the Streets.

Tonight’s blog consists primarily of a photo of the bottle of wine that prevented me from writing it. If you look closely at the photo, you will realise that the bottle is unopened and the glass beside it is clean. I am stone cold sober, and I think the only person I know who could be hit on the head by a bottle of wine while shopping in Tesco’s. This is not the bottle that hit me, I hasten to add.  That one fell off the top shelf while I was picking this one up from the bottom.  Sometimes you couldn’t write life …

One of the problems with suddenly being made to do something you love on a daily basis is that you begin to discover how fickle you are. It’s a bit like moving in with a new partner. Not that I’ve done it that often, I hasten to add. It’s roses and romance all the way when you’re snatching a few precious hours together. Being obliged to watch him pick his toenails in front of Top Gear when you’d planned on Kirstie’s Handmade Hallowe’en is a completely different matter. No wonder so many of my friends choose not to share their living space with the loves of their lives.

Take cooking. I love cooking. This may come as a surprise to some. It did to me. For a fair proportion of my adult life I had no choice about the matter. If I didn’t cook, five people went hungry. One of them being me. I could peel potatoes with my eyes closed. Dice an onion in my sleep. I suspect I did on occasions. There was a brief, halcyon period when the younger members of the family took to the kitchen. Then five dwindled to two. I cooked every single bloody evening. I hated that chopping board more than words can say. Those few square feet of kitchen surface became my own private hell. Two went their separate ways at long last. I moved to Bristol. I lived on poached eggs for six months. I lost a stone … Now there’s a thought – The Poached Egg Diet – could be the next big thing.

Towards the end of the six-month poached-egg-honeymoon period, I began to realise something was missing from my life. It wasn’t my husband. It was food. Real, honest home-cooked food and all that went with it. Chopping. Frying. Roasting. Blending. Experimenting with flavours. Creating. I wasn’t forced to do it any more. I had a choice. I began to enjoy it.

At this point, the logical progression would be to tell you how my relationship with writing has deteriorated since we moved in together. My shoulders ache at the mere thought of a keyboard. I’m on the verge of Repetitive Strain Injury. If he interrupts One Born Every Minute just once more … And the truth is our relationship has changed. In the five days we’ve been living together it’s already become less romantic. In truth, it was only romantic before because we rarely saw each other. There are times when he infuriates me. I’m going to have to have a word about the laundry. And I wish he wouldn’t keep me up so late at night. But it’s a real relationship now. Warts, toenails and all (Top Gear would be taking it too far …). I’m actually putting words onto metaphorical paper. Creating. I have a choice. I’m enjoying it. Romance has its place. On the whole, I prefer reality.

So what was all that about cake? It may not be worth quite 500 words, but it’s going to give me the extra few I need to limp across the finishing line after a very long day. I’ll leave you with a picture of the finished Victoria sandwich I wrote about last night, baked for afternoon tea at the One25 drop-in this afternoon. Maybe there’s a good reason why I love cooking …