On not being able to write, among other things... Enid Richemont

Back in March, before I suddenly took on the totally unwelcome, ugly, and unwished for status of widow, my head was full of ideas, plots, images. My first picture book: '...and Nobody Noticed the Mouse', was due to come out, with TopThat! in September, and a second: 'Quicker than a Princess', had been accepted for publication by the same publisher for some time in 2014. My only other picture book text had been 'DOUBLE DRAGONS', which was really part of an anthology, so I was delighted to have sold two stand-alone stories. Things felt good.

Since David died, I have done no writing except for that single, previous May blog for Authors Electric, which was mostly devoted to him. This will be my second. Writing a monthly blog, I tell myself, is probably a healthy discipline. Whether I can continue doing it remains to be seen.

I said no writing, but that's not entirely true. I have been writing letters to my man. This was David at Christmas, opening one of his presents. Christmas will never be the same again. Upstairs, in a drawer, is his collection of all the letters I ever wrote to him, all on paper of course. They go back decades. These electronic ones will never be a part of that heartbreaking clutter - vanishing, eventually, with a simple click of a mouse. I would love to think of him reading them, though, somehow....

So very little writing, but a great deal of reading. I first read Philip Pullman's 'THE GOOD MAN JESUS AND THE SCOUNDREL CHRIST' - hugely readable, as is all his work, but the title puzzled me because the Christ character was no scoundrel - he was simply conned by an angel. I had given this book to David, but had never read it myself.

I then discovered Jamila Gavin's well-known 'CORAM BOY'. We'd picked it up in a charity shop, but to my shame I'd never read it. It is an amazing novel, both moving and poetic, and so cleverly plotted that I was holding my breath right up to (almost) the very last page. To resort to a cliche, my admiration knew no bounds... I've always found endings difficult.

Alan Bennet's recent short stories -  'SMUT' - grabbed me next. His style makes me think of Jane Austen, with his funny, very detailed observations of people, but he takes you to places to which you, and certainly the illustrious Jane - might not have chosen to visit!

Today I bought Philippa Gregory's Y/A 'Changeling' from a charity shop. I couldn't cope with the awful 'White Queen' on the telly, neither the final production, nor the advertising, but I thought I should try reading her.

I'm still struggling with e-publishing my out of print backlist. It's what David would have wanted, but I'm not the brightest button technologically - in fact, I maybe shouldn't be classified as an Electric Author at all, since he did all the work (but I did the writing, though).