It's Saturday, and it feels good. Patrick and I both woke up exhausted this morning, after a late night at a friend's house, but we had a gorgeous walk in the woods this morning, and we spent the afternoon poking around a section of Leeds we don't normally see. Only about two blocks off the High Street, all the expensive chain shops disappear, replaced by funky little thrift shops, bakeries, artists' supply shops, camping supply stores, and a really excellent fair trade/organic grocery shop with espresso and chocolates to die for. We ogled hiking boots at the camping supply store, picked up sundried tomato vegan pesto and excellent pasta from the grocery shop, and found a used paperback for Patrick and a slinky black dress for me from a thrift shop, for only £7.00, altogether. Very cool.

Yesterday afternoon I cracked the 50,000 word point on my novel, and today in the coffee shop I spent half an hour staring at my notebook in total, blank desperation. I'd plotted out Chapter Twenty-One...I knew exactly how it was supposed to go...and yet I just could not do it. I couldn't write it. I couldn't write....auughh, Death Spiral. Patrick seemed irrationally convinced that I could write, if I just picked up my pen and made myself do it. I showed him my horrible first line, as proof that I couldn't. He said it wasn't actually bad. I stared at him in disbelief. Didn't he understand that I had lost all sparks of talent and even simple competence? He told me to write another paragraph. I gritted my teeth, forced out two more lines...and ended up racing through the next hour of writing, finishing up six and a half more pages.

Huh.

We'll see how it goes tomorrow.