PARENTS AND KIDS

I'm looking forward to watching part two of the BBC's Victoria's Children this evening and I think I've earned the luxury of iPlayer in bed after a successful first day of my new regime.

I ran this morning despite the rain which would normally put me off getting out in the country in summer never mind winter but I felt determined. Don't get me wrong. I'm no Olympic hopeful, I doubt I'll be entering this year's local 10k run, but a gentle jog combined with a brisk walk is a refreshing way to start the day and, like my novel, I hope to build up my stamina bit by neglected bit as the year progresses.

I also managed to achieve almost everything else I set out to do by the end of today - except for starting work on the crime novel's chapter 2 second rewrite. An exciting freelance opportunity came up that needed attention instead but I've still progressed with the novel even if I haven't worked on the bit I intended to address.

Fiction writing and ideas don't always come to me when I want them to. I can sit at the computer for hours staring in vain at a blank screen while trying to avoid distractions like Facebook and Twitter. Later, when I'm not thinking about it, ideas, scenarios, characters, and bits that fit with my plot development come to me. That's when I stop whatever I'm doing, grab a pen and a notebook, and write until my mind is empty. This is where my 2000+ new words come from every day. They are just some of the bricks I'll be using for the foundations of what will ultimately amount to a huge construction project. Likewise they act as the sketch of a painting that has yet to add it's hues, shades, nuances and light to create an overall image.

Parental relationships with children and the Nature/Nurture debate are themes in my book which is another reason, apart from my interest in history and the Monarchy, that I'm looking forward to the second part of the programme examining how Queen Victoria treated her kids and how they responded.

The ever cynical Philip Larkin has his own universal views on that :

They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn By fools in old-style hats and coats, Who half the time were soppy-stern And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can, And don’t have any kids yourself.