Where I get my ideas from, chapter 17, vol 3...

So: you know that thing where absolutely everything is falling apart and in the end there's nothing you can do but run away?

Well, it became entirely clear to me very suddenly in mid-morning that I desperately needed more coffee, for lo, I was in danger of running out by the end of the week. So, into town I went. And two, no, three things happened.

(a) I bought coffee.

(b) I remembered that I also needed bread, and had meant to set a dough to rise first thing, while I waited for all things catastrophic to continue catastrophising all around me. And had forgotten. No bread rising for me at home. No other plans for lunch. What to do? Aha! Remember that there are quick breads, among which is soda bread, which doesn't need rising-time. I had never made soda bread, but I checked a recipe in a book (once I'd realised that I shouldn't be looking up "soda" in the index, but "Irish", grr) and bought buttermilk, which was all that I lacked.

(c) In the bookshop I saw a Bestselling Novel by someone I know, only ever so slightly obscured by another book, so that I could see almost all the title but not the opening letter. I have played more scrabble than is healthy; I used to solve cryptic crosswords on a professional level. Hell, I used to compile them on a professional level. If there's one thing my mind is used to, it's filling in the gaps in words.

On this occasion, it supplied not the actual opening letter, but another.

Which made not a recognised word, but a concept. By the time I had exited the shop, it was flowering into an idea. Twelve paces down the road it was a series. It may, just possibly, be what I have been waiting for...

So then I came home, baked soda bread and e-mailed my agents. The bread is warm and crunchy; agent one is enthusiastic, t'other is not yet at work.

I should probably get on with all that meeting-with-disaster stuff, but, y'know. That involves phone-calls. Maybe I'll post about it instead. Later. Then you-all can advise me again. *nods*

And the other thing that happened today

Guess who turned up at 8.15 this morning...?

Yup. The insurance company's emergency service, who had sworn to be with me by 6.00pm last night. Two and a half days after I'd reported the problem, and into a normal working Monday when I could've got my own plumber to come round...

Not that that would have made much difference, I guess. The guy who came was, I confess, quite cute; and the boys liked him and what he did ("Who are you?" "What are you doing?" "Why are you ripping up the floor?" "Can I go down there?" "Can I go down there now?" "Now can I go down there?" etc ad infinitum, or until he left); and having lacked the resolution of mind to turn him away at the door, I listened and believed when he said that the problem was indeed all in the gutter above, water soaking through the wall and running in along the joists and so dripping down upon my head. Not that he could check this diagnosis, nor do anything about it even temporarily, because he didn't have any ladders in his van.

He thought the insurance company should pay for repairs, as it was causing actual drippage inside my actual house, and was very likely resultant from damage caused by all the snow etc. But it might just be a blocked & overflowing gutter, which we can fix on Saturday when a friend with ladders is very willing to bring them round. So my feeling is not to call the insurance company and have all the trouble of a claim'n'stuff until next week, after we've had a look ourselves; but I am very aware that I will seize any excuse at any time, not to make phone-calls to bureaucracies. I distrust my own motives.

Also, I do still intend to complain, because this is so very far from my notion of an emergency service. Two and a half days to respond, and then they did nothing. But, again, I don't want to do it by phone for all the obvious reasons. I hate to be such a wimp, but such a wimp I am. I write good letters, and I am crap at phone-calls.

Also, because I had been almost happy for a few hours there, with bright new ideas to play with, both my agents are now glooming at me about how bloody awful the market is just now, and my own sales figures worse than ever. Oh joy. I, um, need a new contract, guys, y'know...?