Today I didn’t hit the 500 word count target – and I have also come to loathe the “Word count” icon at the top of my screen that refuses to clock up the words quicker or count one word as two – I don’t ask for much in fairness! Today, pulling words from my brain and making them line up in the right order was like trudging through treacle in my ridiculously high heels. And while I only managed to drag 200 of the buggers out it was not a wasted day.  Not at all.

I read amazing pieces on what happened in Guernica in 1936, among them a chilling report from Noel Monks of the “London Daily Express”, the first reporter on the scene.  I also watched some weird, cracked French documentary from the 1950’s by Alain Resnais – sweet jesus but I felt like I had been dragged into the Twilight Zone via Tales of the Unexpected by the maniacal love child of Alfred Hitchcock and Stephen King.  I may need to watch back to back episodes of “In the Night Garden” before I go to bed to ensure that I don’t wake up screaming and sweating in the middle of the night!…..But….in saying that, I still managed to get something lovely from this piece.  Some truly beautiful words, lines, descriptions that both touched and chilled me.

So while I fell short of my deadline, I am proud that I still had the courage to give it a go.  I put my ass on the seat and I tried. And isn’t that what it’s about?  If I hadn’t tried to write something today I would have felt like I had failed.  But I made the effort and while the desired result wasn’t achieved I am happy that I gave it a go.  Somedays the words flow like a waterfall through my tap tapping fingers onto the glowing screen and other days (like today) they get clogged in the pipes and need a little more persuasion and tinkering to be released.

The target still remains though and I will have to (try to) make up the other 300 words tomorrow.  Here’s hoping tomorrow is a waterfall day.

Debs x