Swingses and roundaboutses

The advantage of going to the Lit & Phil in the mornings to work: a thousand words before lunch. Reliably, consistently. Once I've gone that far in the rain, I'm not leaving until the coffee's all drunk and the pages are written.

The disadvantage: twenty-five quid before lunch. All too often, there or thereabouts. Today it was books and bread and fabulous teas. Almost all reduced, because I am a wonder shopper; sometimes people offer me discounts before I ask for them. I put that down to my particular virtues of strangeness and charm... [Hee. Do you see what I did there?]

Anyway. I am poorer and damper, my house is a little more full and so is my hard drive. The book is past three hundred pages, yay, and I'm nowhere near finished for the day.

Tonight we have a stage adaptation of Angela Carter's "The Bloody Chamber", which I am looking forward to more than somewhat; meantime, the end of this chapter dances in my eyes, and the beginning of the next. And possibly even some notion of a shape for the rest of the book. I have a last line, hurrah! I always like a destination, even though I hate a chart. I cannot share it, for it is not mine to share; you do know this book is pseudonymous, right? Besides which, it is the definition of a spoiler. My last lines are important; I have to work towards them, and so do you.

Time and motion: a culinary interlude

It takes about fifteen minutes out of my writing-time to go downstairs, boil up a pan of water and cook basmati rice for later stir-frying.

Turns out that this is exactly but exactly the amount of time I need to chop a couple of shallots, crush a couple of garlics, sizzle 'em in olive oil and then break in a couple of pounds of meaty field mushrooms. Including, obviously, the occasional and essential toss of a mushroom-stalk for Mac. He likes me to lob 'em high, so he can biff 'em before he noms 'em; me, I like to lob 'em straight at his pretty nose.

The mushrooms are currently stewing, as it were, in their own juice. I shall trot down and turn the heat off in a minute. Tomorrow there will be chicken stock and blending, and then the rest of the mushrooms, along with celery and carrots and smoky bacon, and I shall have a soup. Om-nom-nom.

Oh, and to be clear, no: I did not throw a shallot at Mac. I did not. Whatever the injured little fuzzbutt chooses to imply. I am a clumsy man, and things fall off my chopping-board. 'Specially as my chopping is ridiculously confined to one small corner of its vasty acreage, on account of the rest of it being filled up with bottles and jars and detritus and stuff. Lots of stuff. I have very little space in my kitchen, and I do not manage it well.