Pantaloons

If only writing a novel were as easy as choosing colours for a new kitchen. Mind you, I don't find choosing colours for a kitchen that easy. What started off as a Moroccan marriage of blues and yellows is starting to look more like a jester's pantaloons. No permanent damage has been done yet, thank goodness: we're still at the planning stages. But the kitchen wall is currently a patchwork of different shades of blue surrounded by different shades of yellow and I confess - because, yes, I AM at the stage where my metaphors really ARE that desperate - I'm beginning to see it as a reflection of what's happening inside my Writer's Head: I know roughly what I'm trying to get at, but I haven't decided on the exact tones and hues and I have an awful feeling that, when I do decide, it'll simply be for the sake of making a decision.

The Great Novel hasn't had any greatness added to it during the last week. I tell myself the reason is that I've had a nasty cold, but I suspect it's also because I haven't had a clue what to write. I spent most of my writing time of yesterday reading other people's entries for the One Day In History project. Most of them were far more interesting than the idea I've got for my novel. This was encouraging.

I heard an extract on Radio 4 today from Claire Tomalin's new biography of Thomas Hardy. Apparently he had the same thing for breakfast every day: bacon sprinkled with brown sugar. Might be worth trying that...