Procrastination is the thief of time, said Dickens. I think that writers are more aware of the passage of time that most, when they aren’t writing that is.

I’m trying to get back into it after over two years of not writing anything meaningful. The aftermath of losing a partner was not what I expected. After all, she had lived six years with cancer so I knew what was coming or, at least, I thought I did. The stages of grief for me were total numbness then a heaviness that one person described as ‘having swallowed a large black heavy stone’. After two years the stone is still there. I’ve come to the conclusion that’s it’s not going anywhere so I’ll just have to learn to live with it which is probably a step in the right direction for me.

So what did I do when I wasn’t writing? Yes, like many of us, I fell down the black hole of doomscrolling and there is certainly enough doom about to scroll through. It didn’t make me feel any better though, it just made the black stone heavier. Hate seems to be everywhere, spurred on by evil actors who seem to delight in setting people against each other. The USA has become schizophrenic with Trump and his coterie stirring the pot of hate as fast as they can and people seem to lap it up. Religious psychosis is rampant with mad people proclaiming Trump as being Jesus and this being ‘the end of days’. Who knows but they might be right?

Almost every country has their Trump wannabes hoping to achieve power by using the same recipe of hate and fear stirred vigorously. In the UK we have a flim-flam man called Farage who seems popular but God knows why. In my opinion, he is a consistent liar and chancer who is also pocketing millions from his endeavors, a Trump mini-me.

Should we despair? No.

Thankfully, real life isn’t like the internet. I have to remind myself that most people are friendly and helpful and not to assume things based of prejudices gained from too much internet slop. An instance of this happened not long ago. On a sunny day I was sitting outside my local pub enjoying the weather and the ambience. Then I noticed three white men sitting at a table nearby. They were bald headed, stocky and tattooed, typical racists I thought. Then two friends of theirs arrived and, after friendly hugs all round, they sat down with them. They were, of course, black. I immediately felt ashamed for pre-judging those men which is exactly what racists do.

Change is happening on the biggest of scales and I’m beginning to convince myself that there’s some hope at the end of the tunnel. The world has had to dance to the tune of the big powers for too long but now some of those powers are crumbling in real time. What will replace the old paradigm? I’ve no idea but there is a chance that it might actually be an improvement and that is the straw that I’m grasping at.

As for writing? Well, I’ve started once again on the next Mac Maguire novel so, fingers crossed, I might finish it this year. Plus I’ve written this post so I’m hoping that my writers block is also crumbling.

Hope not hate.

(Thanks to MoMagic for the heart and GDJ for the fist illustrations)