This is me browsing through my Grimoire. I truth I have come to work without my specs. Awkward. I'm still at the off-the-peg stage with eye support so have cheap old pairs lying about everywhere at home, but not here. I've managed the crossword and other Inde puzzles but can't get on with writing the two stories a friend found in a local history book to add to my Folk Tales of the North collection. Frustrating.

The stories are rather good ones in that the source is from a century much closer to the events than I usually find, but they are about witch trials at an 'Ordeal Pot', a deep water hole near the cathedral and upsetting rather than quirky which makes me like them less. I'm not aiming for historical realism in my collection thank you, just entertainment.

This morning I laid out all my writing projects across my bed (where I mostly write now I have the laptop) and tried to decide which one of the five to concentrate on. I've put my faith in that angel of Purpose to see I get on with something, get it finished finished and do something with it at last. ( It isn't necessary to believe in angelic beings to use the energy generated by picking a particular quality from a pack of cards. As it happens I DO believe in over- lighting beings. If anyone out there has read the Seth channelings they'll see how it could work, if not put it down to wooly, pick'n'mix thinking.)

The autobiography project is accruing a small group of ladies who are interested in doing the same thing. Not sure how useful a group is to a writer, It can be a distraction rather than a help, but as I've written about my life before ( and lost the results) it's a bit dull ploughing the same furrow so the socialising might regenerate some spontaneity.

Talking to my half- brother over Christmas revealed the startling news that he also writes in hope of being published. His genre is crime, for
which he has a solid advantage as he was in the police force all his working life and the CID for many years. I, on the other hand, have first
hand knowledge of very little and am not at all observant of real life organisational details, only of people and whatever makes them tick.

I definitely feel better when I get into writing mode.

If I could get beyond the first chapter or turn some false starts into stories it would help. Focus!