The Art of Conversation

Last night as Jack was sitting at the kitchen table I thought I'd enlighten him with the reason for my current lack of spark:

'As I lay in bed this morning,' I began. 'It occurred to me why I'm so tired.'

'Why?'

'Well since I finished full time work which was... hmm about mid-September... I have written 2/3rds of my novel. In that time ... which is what... about 8 weeks (I just counted) I've written over 50,000 words and I've almost finished the novel! Two weeks, I reckon, til I finish the first draft....And I've been working part-time, and written an outline for a comedy, and working on a sample storyline for....'

He rolled his eyes at me.

I am truly excited by this prospect, given when I was working I wrote 30,000 words in about what....ten months... and barely remember what they say.

'It'll probably take me about 3 months to redraft and rewrite, but still, I'm very excited.'

He groaned.

'Look,' I said. 'I don't have a boss to talk to about this, I don't have a boyfriend, I just have you --- and the girls ---  and I need to talk to someone about it, as well as them.'

'And you don't want to turn out like Nana.'

'What does she do? Oh yeah.' I looked at the cage on the worktop where Hannah lives.

'Nana talks to the hamster.'

'Now that would be mad.'

'Promise me,' said Jack. 'That if you ever do get a boyfriend you'll be more interesting than this, because if you have conversations like this with a boyfriend, he will get up and leave.'