It's not just the writing

At the moment, with my head stuck in the PhD, it feels like that's all there is. It can get like that when you're stuck in a book too, especially in the editing phase, if you are on deadline. It's nice to remember sometimes that you can do other things. And those other things make you the writer you are, even if you don't always realise it.

I'm chuffed at the moment because I took some time out to re-visit my Allen key skills to put together a new desk chair from a certain Swedish retailer. When I opened the box and saw all the bits I had serious doubts about whether I still had what it took to put the thing together, even though the house is full of other stuff that I have assembled, including some scary cupboards with glass doors that are bigger than I am. I still had my plumber's mate then, so it wasn't a solo effort.

Anyway, dear reader, I did it. Here is Reggie, enjoying the result.

In fact the hardest part was taking the chair it replaced upstairs for my office in the smallest bedroom.

And when I was brushing up the floor in the dining room/other office yesterday I remembered how I had laid the floor tiles for almost the whole of the ground floor. Not sure I'd be able to do that again, but that's down to the arthritic knees.

It's not always easy to remember the other things that you can do, or might be able to do - it's not just in the past. And all those things feed into the writing. I have a book in the 'to be written pile' that involves the renovation of a house, and I know that the floor tiling and things will get into that, may even have prompted it, for all I know. And doing things that are a bit testing, or scary probably feed into writing strong heroines who can look after themselves at least some of the time. Well, at least ones who are not scared of a Swedish chair. It's useful to draw on that.

And we all need strong heroines.