This road...

... seems to stretch on and on.
I did say that I'd like to spend more time with friends and family. Nothing ever seems to pan out the way you want, though. A social life and a writer's life are often contradictions in terms: you can't have one with the other. Some people can do both, and I hope they do. I'm one who can't; something has to give, and I have to write. I changed my life in 2006, leaving Local Govt for good. Life, and illness, and everything that came with it, stopped everything for quite a while. I know that now. Everything changes for a reason, and who I was is not who I am now. I can't afford to waste this opportunity. It won't come again.
I've got five days off from the 14th, during which time I'll be piecing together the movement into what I've always termed 'the river', or the main storyline. Up to now I've been introducing the hero and his friends, and an elusive enemy. Most of the scene has been set, hopefully without any static, and lots of intrigue - my 'take' on how this story should begin. Of course, my marvellous readers have virtually dictated the opening chapter's style. It was the only place in the whole story for it, and it works. So I can listen when I have to!
Noel the Ultimate Proofreader has made a very good point: that I've given myself a massive task. Noel's natural concern that I do it justice after I'd explained some things in the tale that nobody knows yet. It's a big ask, I know, and quite a few times I have wondered if I was up to it. Solvey's poem challenge indicated to me that I can pick up anything and make something of it. It was a relatively small thing, but big enough to mean quite a lot. The same attitude will be needed to complete this story. Every writer should be lke this, inside their head. Only time will tell if I'm actually like this for real.
I'm having fun, though, in that I am, at last, doing what I set out to do in 2006. Things have taken shape, and very much in the way I wanted them to. This story can only look one way, so I must ensure that it does. One day this child will grow into adulthood.
Not sure if I meant the story or me... :-)