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Fool Time Score

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Fool, now there’s an interesting word. As a noun, it means a person who lacks judgement or acts unwisely. An idiot, basically. As a verb, it means either to deceive or trick as well as to waste time or act foolishly.

I think I’m guilty of being both the noun and the verb recently.

I’m a fool to myself, speaking of the noun. I keep setting time targets for myself and then broadcasting it either via this blog or Substack. And then I look like a total berk when I don’t make good on those targets.

Take my blog post from the 9th June. You may recall it; it was titled Switcheroo. It was a well written, little piece that fizzed and zinged with positivity, that I concocted in a mood of joie de vivre. I was feeling triumphant from writing a whole chapter of my next novel in one day and became so full of exuberance that I made all sorts of claims and promises in that post that I was going to get the novel finished in the space of a few weeks.

Foolish of me.

Here we are several weeks later and I’m just on the cusp of finishing chapter 7 of that book. Nowhere near what I had crowed about on June 9th. Nowhere even remotely near.

Now, I’m not saying that the writing itself has been a struggle as I am convinced that this is going to be one of the best Joe Wilkie books yet and I am enjoying the writing process immensely. I truly am having so much fun with this one.

It’s just that I haven’t gotten all that far with it. Life, as you know, has a habit of getting in the way of things and my life is no exception to the rules. Yes, I could blame poor health, yes I could blame commitments and yes I could blame my own reticence and idleness at times. The stark naked fact is that I simply shouldn’t have made those claims in the first place.

Because now, I look like a fool for saying them.

As a verb, it’s even worse!

I feel like I’ve deceived my readers by making such bold statements. I’ve fooled people into thinking they’re going to be reading Joe’s next adventure in the near future when in reality it might not even be this year.

I mean, I’m doing my best and I’m hopeful it’ll be released before Christmas but the truth is I just can’t promise that and I shouldn’t have given people the wrong idea when I said it would be ready by Autumn.

Ok, it might well be ready by Autumn if I get my foot down but then again it might not. I just can’t say for certain.

And to think, I convinced myself and all of you that I thought it possible that I’d write three chapters a week. I’m a fool whose fooled.

So I’m sorry everyone. I’m not going to make any more bold promises or set myself time-based targets that are just unrealistic and unfeasible. Instead, I’m going to knuckle down and write my ass off as and when I can and instead of focussing on the release date I shall focus on producing the best book that I can. Quality over quantity must now be my mantra when it comes to the daily word count.

I think, as a writer, I should be aiming for more mystique and less foolishness.

Incidentally, a fool is also a kind of pudding. It’s pink, fruity and not very healthy. Now, who does that remind you of?

The Power Of A Chat

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The amazing and wonderful woman I am proud to share my life with (Ange) has been having some reflexology sessions as part of her recovery treatment from breast cancer. I must confess that I don’t know an awful lot about reflexology and may have perhaps dismissed it in the past as quack medicine. But minds can change and mine certainly has towards reflexology. If it helps the woman I adore then lets crack on with it.

The reflexology session lasts about an hour and so whilst Ange is in there I go to a place called the Sound Bar, which, if you’re interested, is situated right next to the bus station in Skipton. I like the Sound Bar although I do think it’s trying a little too hard to be cool. It really doesn’t need to.

It’s called the Sound Bar because…

  1. It is a bar
  2. It sells music in both vinyl and cd formats

Also, they have regular gigs and performances there and they play some pretty decent music while you’re having a drink or a vinyl/cd safari. Plus, the walls are decorated with all manner of Rock n Roll memorabilia. It’s kind of like stepping back in time to the early eighties so it is extremely retro in that respect.

Anyway, I like going in there and it’s a very rare occasion that I don’t come out of the place with at least one new record in my hand; often several.

And so, last Friday I found myself in there again.

There were only a few people in at that time and so I bought a pint of Guinness Zero and had a quaff before perusing said vinyl. There was a lady seated at the table next to mine, maybe in her early seventies, holding a Yorkshire terrier and drinking a latte. I smiled and said, “How d’you do?” to be polite and then I took a generous swallow of my non-alcoholic stout.

To cut a short story even shorter we began a conversation about music and we discovered our tastes ran along similar lines. We talked of bands we’d seen and whilst I name dropped Wishbone Ash and Uriah Heep, she countered with Hawkwind and Smile. For the uninitiated, Smile was Queen before they were Queen. Wow!

We talked of many other things; grandchildren being one, and I felt quite proud to tell her that Erin at 19 years old is rather fond of Fleetwood Mac. We also talked about dogs and pets in general. I had a Yorkie/Jack Russell cross many years ago (Suzy) and so we found another shared interest.

When I’d first sat down I noticed that there was a certain air of melancholy about her but as we talked her mood seemed to lift. I finished my pint and excused myself as I wanted to look at the records.

My vinyl safari lasted about fifteen minutes or so and I came away with a copy of Foxtrot by Genesis in excellent condition. Feeling rather chuffed I bought another Zero and sat down again. The lady was still there and was now drinking a glass of lager; it being after midday I suppose.

We got to chatting again and she asked me about my walking stick. I gave her a potted history of my health problems and then she told me something that really stopped me in my tracks.

She told me that very recently she had been diagnosed with dementia.

I didn’t quite know what to say at that juncture. Here was a total stranger telling me that basically life is about to get a lot worse for her but still saying it in a chatty and conversational way. Now I knew the reason for her melancholy countenance when I first arrived but the thing is that without us having that chat I wouldn’t have known about her condition as she was so talkative.

Now, I think I realise what was going on.

She was unburdening to me about her diagnosis. Having formed a sort of connection through a shared interest in music, grandkids and dogs she had felt able to tell me about dementia affecting her life. And the amazing thing was that even though she’d told me that she did seem a lot happier than when I’d first met her a mere half hour ago. Relieved almost.

We chatted a little more about Led Zeppelin and Genesis and then she said that she had to go and meet her daughter to whom the little dog belonged. I said something like, “See you later!” which is a bit phatic really. Unless she’s in the Sound Bar the next time I’m in there it’s highly unlikely.

I wish I’d told her that I hoped she would be all right or given her some words of comfort and encouragement instead of those three vacant words I had employed. I was cross with myself to be perfectly honest.

However…

Since then I’ve had a different opinion. It didn’t matter how we finished the conversation, what was more important was the fact that we’d had one in the first place and it had made an improvement to her day. And that, I suppose, is the moral of this story. We should never shy away from engaging with our fellow man or woman. A bit of a chat about music, dogs, art, literature, football, gardening, tea bags, bog snorkelling or whatever the hell else you have in common can make a massive difference to that person’s day.

I realised that our little chat had been a powerful thing and, even though I never even asked her name nor she mine, I like to think that I made a bit of a difference to her.

Ange arrived about ten minutes after the lady had left and had enjoyed her reflexology session immensely. I told her that this woman I’d never met before had confided her dementia diagnosis to me and part of me wished she had been there at the time as she is the most understanding and sensitive person you could ever hope to meet and would have been a much better sounding board for such things – I’m not a great conversationalist at the best of times.

But I’m going to try and do better in the future. I need to make more of an effort with people and take the time to chat with strangers. We all should. You just never know what it might achieve.