When it comes to writing, it’s easy to think you have to wait for the Muses, for Inspiration to strike. To wait for the perfect set of circumstances: the right pen or keyboard, for silence, for all the chores to be done. It’s also easy to fall into the trap of thinking that writing is easy.

I forget which writer it was who said something along the lines of how, fortunately, Inspiration struck at about 9am every day. Serendipitously, that was when he sat down at his desk every day. Funny, that. (Ah! A quick Google search is attributing similar quotations to several writers: Faulkner, Maugham, Chandler.) I presume they also had a vague idea as to what they were going to write about, which I find helps, even if I do then write about something else entirely.

And it’s not necessarily about finding the time to write. It’s about simply sitting down to do the writing. About forgetting the Perfect Circumstances, and just getting on with it. About forgetting the Muses.

I think it’s also about getting over the block of an empty page. A writing exercise I came across talked of another writer (again, I forget which one) who simply wrote “A quick brown fox jumped over a lazy dog” over and over, to get rid of the empty page. I haven’t tried that trick yet.

Given the limitations on my writing time, I spend an awful lot of time thinking about what to write, make notes across several notebooks so I can’t find the thought I want when I want it, and then try the Just Show Up method when I do catch Tiny in a nap when I can sit and write. Or type. Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn’t.

But, ultimately, the best way of writing is the way that works for you. We all do it differently, and I think writers pontificating on what works for them is all very well, but that doesn’t mean it’ll work for you too. That will require a bit of experimenting on your part, and persistence.

Basically, though, I’m nearly always thinking about something to do with whatever I’m writing or planning to write or might one day write. Sometimes I even get to write some of it down.

And now to the Joys this week.

Firstly, we returned to Tredegar House and identified the last of the David Low caricatures: George Bernard Shaw. No idea why he wasn’t labelled, when the others were.

And, secondly, it was Results week for the last essay. Unlike the other essays, this one was causing me anxiety and bad dreams, because I knew it was a bad essay. Fortunately it was just about good enough to pass. So it’s onwards to the dissertation!